RELATIONS BETWEEN MORAL REASONING,
PERSONALITY TRAITS, AND
JUSTICE-DECISIONS ON HYPOTHETICAL
AND REAL-LIFE MORAL DILEMMAS
Russell W. C. Day
B.A. (HON), University of Victoria, 1987
M.A., University of Guelph, 1989
THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in the Department
of
PSYCHOLOGY
ORussell W. C. Day 1997
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
July 1997
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Titlc.:
Y
Rclatii)n\ Hetuecn k4oral'Rca:,oning. Pcrwnalitf Traith. and JuhtifcDcci\ion\ on H~yothetic:lland Rcal-Life Moral Dilemma\
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
...
111
ABSTRACT
Participants (1 06 women and 95 men) responded to a distributive justice dilemma that
involved allocating money to self and three others and making judgments about allocation
behaviours. Participants were randomly assigned to groups that responded to the dilemma in
a purely hypothetical manner, in a real situation with play money, and in a real situation with
real money. Participants also completed Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview (MJI; Colby
& Kohlberg, 1987), the Revised Interpersonal Adjectives Scale--Big 5 (IASR-B5; Trapnell &
Wiggins, 1990), and a study-specific measure of the moral reasoning used to justify
allocation decisions. Participants made more self-benefitting decisions when the
consequences were real than when the consequences were hypothetical or involved play
money and they justified their decisions at relatively low levels of moral reasoning. The data
were consistent with previous findings that: a) moral reasoning scores on Kohlberg's test
were higher than scores on a non-Kohlbergian dilemma; b) there were no sex differences in
reasoning on Kohlberg's dilemmas; and, c) moral reasoning scores were moderately
predictive of behaviour. New findings were that: a) specific instructions to engage in moral
reasoning either before or after making a moral decision had little effect on moral reasoning
or allocation decisions; b) men exhibited more selfish behaviour than women did, yet showed
similar levels of moral reasoning; and, c) Openness scores on the IASR-B5 were as
predictive of allocation behaviour as MJI scores were. The findings are discussed in terms of
Kohlberg's model and the additivelinclusive model (Levine, 1979) of moral development.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
iv
Acknowledgements
The existence of this work must be attributed to the support I received from family,
friends, and colleagues. Sue Smyth, my partner and mate, gave me love and support over the
long months when I was often home in body but not in mind. My parents, Ken and Kay Day,
my sister Keli, her husband David Swinnard, and their children, Lisa and Alex, believed from
the very beginning that I could do it.
The work might never have been completed without the guidance, support, and
friendship of my supervisor, Dr. Dennis Krebs. His efforts on my behalf have been
exceptional. Thank you.
The other members of my committee, Drs. Gary Poole, Bill Krane, and Steve Hart
challenged me to do the best work possible. Grant Burt, in addition to conducting half of the
research in a very profession manner, helped me to keep the project in perspective--thanks for
your good humour. Dr. Gillian Wark and Danielle Krebs spent hundreds of hours scoring all
the protocols; a job well done.
Finally, my sanity, or lack thereof, through the whole process was due to the support
of fiends and colleagues--in no particular order: Bev, Gill, Lorie, Cristine, Joan W.,
Elizabeth, Phil, Dave, Wendy, Anita, Joanne, Gloria, Richard W., Kathy D., Gary, Devorah,
Wayne, Dianne, and all the people who, in one way or another, made the process more
human. Thanks to all.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
v
Table of Contents
Page
..
APPROVAL .......................................................................................................................
11
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................
111
...
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... v
LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................
viii
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................
ix
INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................................
1
Problems with Kohlberg and Candee's (1984) Model ................................................. 6
The Current Study ........................................................................................................
8
Issues Related to Kohlberg and Candee's (1984) Model ............................................. 10
Exploring the Relation between Personality. Moral Reasoning. and Behaviour ......... 16
METHOD ...........................................................................................................................
18
Participants ...................................................................................................................
18
Instruments ...................................................................................................................
19
Procedure ......................................................................................................................
22
Scoring and Analyses.....................................................................................................
26
RESULTS ...........................................................................................................................
28
Scores on Standard and Study-specific Measures .......................................................... 28
Examination of Issues ...................................................................................................... 29
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
Hypothetical: First-person versus Third-person ...........................................................
Time of Reasoning ........................................................................................................
Moral Reasoning .................................................................................................................
Distributive Justice Behaviour and Reasoning by Group .............................................
Relation between MoraI Judgment and Behaviour .......................................................
Sex Differences .............................................................................................................
Relation between Personality. Moral Reasoning. and Behaviour .................................
Predicting Behaviour ....................................................................................................
DISCUSSION .....................................................................................................................
Issue 1: First-person versus Third-person ....................................................................
Issue 2: Time of Reasoning ..........................................................................................
Issue 3: KMM and DJMM Scores ................................................................................
Issue 4: KMM and DJMM scores by Group ................................................................
Issue 5: Effects of Consequences .................................................................................
Issue 6: Relation between Moral Judgment and Behaviour .........................................
Issue 7: Sex Differences ...............................................................................................
Issues 8 & 9: Relation between Personality. Moral Reasoning. and Behaviour ...........
Serendipitous Findings .................................................................................................
Limitations and Future Directions
..............................................................................
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................
vi
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
vii
APPENDICES
Personality Measures: Conceptual Content and Related Research .......................... 54
Section A: Design of the Decision Reasoning Questionnaires ............................... 56
Section B: Decision Reasoning Questionnaire-A ................................................. 58
Section C: Performance Scales ............................................................................... 59
Section D: DRQ-B Questions only .......................................................................... 61
Section E: DRQ-P Questions only ......................................................................... 62
Third-person Hypothetical "Fred" Dilemma Instructions and Questions ................ 63
Section A: Complete Participant Feedback.. Sample. Fred Condition .................... 66
Section B: Participant Feedback.. Questionnaire Study .......................................... 67
Section C: Participant Feedback.. Allocation Study ................................................ 68
Procedural Details .................................................................................................... 70
Section A: Allocation Study Instruction Summary ................................................. 72
Section B: Ranking Task Instructions .................................................................. 73
Section A: Allocation Task Instructions-. Reasoning AfterReal Money ................ 74
Section B: Allocation Task Instructions--Reasoning BeforeElay Money .............. 75
Hypothetical "Imagine Self' Instructions ................................................................
76
FOOTNOTES .....................................................................................................................
78
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
viii
List of Tables
Table
Page
1. Description of Groups, DRQ Format, Context, and Tasks ........................................ 79
2. Mean Moral Maturity across Sex and Kohlberg Dilemmas ......................................... 80
3. Mean IASR-B5 Domain Scores by Sex compared to
Trapnell and Wiggins (1992) ............................................................................ 8 1
4. Mean NEO-PI-R Domain Scores compared to Costa and McCrae (1992)
Table B-3 for College-Age Individuals .................................................................. 82
5. Pearson's Correlations between NEO-PI-R Domain scores and
IASR-B5 Domain Scores (N = 166) .................................................................. 83
6. Mean KMM and DJMM Scores across Conditions .................................................... 84
7. Mean Money Kept Scores and DJMM Scores by Consequence .................................. 85
8. Mean KMM and DJMM Scores by Sex and Condition ................................................ 86
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
ix
List of Figures
Figure
Page
1. Kohlberg and Candee's (1984) Model of the Relation between
Moral Judgment and Moral Action ......................................................................... 87
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
1
Relations between Moral Reasoning, Personality Traits, and
Justice-Decisions on Hypothetical and Real-Life Dilemmas.
For decades, psychologists have attempted, without much success, to explain the
relation between moral judgment and moral behaviour. Many researchers, from Hartshorne
and May (1929) to the recent attempts reviewed by Kohlberg and Candee (1984), have
concluded that, in general, there is only a weak, if any, relation between moral judgment and
moral behaviour. This has led some researchers to suggest moral reasoning and moral
behaviour are on separate tracks; that "what people say and what people do" are basically
unrelated (see Krebs & Denton, in press, for a review).
Kohlberg and Candee (1984) have argued that the failure to find a strong relation
between moral judgment and moral behaviour results fiom using invalid measures of both
moral judgment and moral behaviour. Over a period of three decades, Kohlberg (Colby &
Kohlberg, 1984,1987) developed a measure, that he argued was a valid and reliable measure
of moral judgment. In addition, Kohlberg proposed a model of the relation between moral
judgment and moral behaviour.
In Kohlberg's model (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) moral judgment is assumed to
develop progressively in fixed stages, following an invariant sequence, with each more
advanced stage structure completely replacing the previous stage structure; that is, each stage
is a "structure of the whole," and the more advanced stage transforms and displaces the
earlier developmental stage (Kohlberg, 1984). Initially, Kohlberg outlined six stages
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
2
necessary to define all possible levels of moral judgment, but after much criticism, Kohlberg
modified the six stage approach, suggesting only five stages were necessary to measure moral
maturity.
Kohlberg's measure of moral judgment. The most recent version of Kohlberg's
Moral Judgment Interview (MJI; Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) poses hypothetical moral
dilemmas based on competing moral norms (e.g., life vs. law). An individual responds to the
dilemmas, either orally or in writing, by making a decision about what the protagonist should
do, then justifying that decision. A familiar example is the dilemma faced by Heinz, who
must decide whether or not to steal a drug to save his dying wife. People responding to the
MJI dilemma must decide what Heinz should do, then justify the decision. The reasons used
to justify the decision, not the decision itself, are scored for stage of moral maturity by
matching the reasons or "judgments" with "criterion judgments" in Colby and Kohlberg's
(1987) 1500 page scoring manual. Scores from all matched judgments are weighted and
averaged to produce a global stage score from 1 to 5 andlor a weighted average score (WAS)
from 100 to 500 (corresponding to stage 1 and stage 5). WAS are also called moral maturity
scores. The WAS corresponds to the highest stage achieved, or moral competence.
- and Candee's (1984) Model of the Relation between Moral Judgment and Moral
Kohlberg:
Behaviow
Kohlberg and Candee (1984) outlined a four-step model of the relation between moral
judgment and moral behaviour (see Figure 1). Kohlberg and Candee made several
assumptions, namely: 1) that the MJI is a good measure of moral judgment, 2) that people
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
facing moral situations will desire to know the morally correct behaviour in that situation,
and, 3) that people will use rational, deductive problem-solving processes to figure out the
most moral course of action.
Step 1 in the process involves interpreting the information in the situation according
to the stage of moral development achieved. "Stage of moral reasoning is a filter through
which...situational forces are perceived, interpreted, and acted upon" (Kohlberg & Candee,
1984, p. 564). People at different stages perceive the situation differently, focussing on the
aspects relevant to their stage. For example, a person at Stage 2 may focus on individual,
instrumental purpose and exchange, potentially leading to behavioural preferences that
maximize self-interest in terms of concrete fair exchange. A person at Stage 3 may focus on
mutual, interpersonal expectations, relationships, and conformity or the Golden Rule,
potentially leading to behavioural preferences that are attentive to the expectations of others.
Stage-based moral reasoning processes lead to a moral decision, which Kohlberg and
Candee (1 984) called a deontic choice (Step 2). Once the deontic, or "should" or "right"
choice is made, the appropriate behaviour, being thus "prescribed," should follow.
Theoretically, depending on the dilemma, the specific deontic choice a person makes may or
may not relate systematically to his or her stage of moral development. For example, people
at all stages might be willing to tell a small lie to save a life; whereas, on more difficult
dilemmas, only people who have reached high stages may make a "more moral" decision.
Although deontic choice is necessary for moral behaviour, it does not lead directly to moral
behaviour, making moral judgment even less related to moral behaviour.
3
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
4
At Step 3 of Kohlberg and Candee's (1984) model, people make judgments of
responsibility or obligation; that is, whether or not, regardless of their stage of moral
judgment or deontic choice, they feel compelled to "follow-through" and behave according to
their decision about the morally "right" action.
At Step 4 of Kohlberg and Candee's (1984) model non-moral "follow through"
processes labelled "ego control" (intelligence, attention, and delay of gratification) link
judgments about the obligation to act on judgments of responsibility, and moral behaviour.
Most researchers examining the relation between moral judgment and behaviour have
ignored steps 3 and 4.
What is moral behaviour? The outcome variable in Kohlberg and Candee's (1984)
model is moral action, which is defined very specifically. Kohlberg and Candee claim that
"moral judgment is a necessary component of an action judged moral, but it need not be
sufficient for evaluating the morality of an action or actor" (p. 5 12). Locke (1983) criticized
Kohlberg's definition of moral action, arguing that Kohlberg's definition is similar to Kant's
idea that "moral action consists in acting for the sake of morality itself, or as he would put it,
acting out of respect for the moral law" (Locke, 1983, p. 114).
This narrow definition, that all moral action stems fiom moral reasoning, excludes
actions that are moral, but are not derived from moral reasoning; which means that few, if
any, everyday behaviours would be considered moral. An alternative model is based on the
idea that people have any number of habits and stable behavioural patterns (perhaps traits)
that lead to specific behaviours--many of which could be considered moral. The specific
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
5
behaviour elicited in a situation depends on the type and strength of the evoking stimuli, as
well as on a complex interplay of internal trait strengths, inhibiting factors, and situational
understanding. A more interactional model of moral judgmentlaction, which might include
cognitive processes other than the rational processes of moral reasoning, is needed.
A resolution of the restricted-range of moral behaviour problem of Kohlberg and
Candee's (1984) model can be achieved by using a broader definition of what constitutes
moral action. This broader definition recognizes that some behaviours are motivated by
moral reasoning, and other behaviour may be classified as moral in an a posteriori fashion.
The resulting definition, "moral action as action which is explicable, at least in part, by moral
reasons" (Locke, 1983, p. 117) includes actions that might & be considered moral under the
strict KantianKohlbergian definition. However, this broader definition of morality has
greater utility, especially if we are to accept the notion that people sometimes act without
thinking. In s m a r y , an action is not considered moral until we pass judgment on it before
or after the action takes place.
Research on Kohlberg and Candee's Model. As mentioned earlier, and as
documented by Blasi (1980) and Kohlberg and Candee (1984), most past research on the
relation between moral judgment and behaviour deemed more or less moral has examined the
relation between scores on Kohlberg's test (Step 1 in Kohlberg and Candee's model), at one
point in time, and some behaviour considered to be moral or immoral at another point in
time. Blasi's (1980) review of research found that most studies reported a weak positive
relation between scores on Kohlberg's test and measures of moral behaviour. Even Kohlberg
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
6
and Candee noted that attempts to predict moral behaviour fiom moral judgment scores have
had only moderate success.
Problems with Kohlberg and Candee's Model
The support reported by Kohlberg and Candee (1984) notwithstanding, more and
more evidence has pointed to problems with their model. The first problem is that Kohlberg
and colleagues assume people use the same level of moral maturity (stage structure) they
display on Kohlberg's test as they do on other dilemmas--Kohlberg1sstructure of the whole
assumption. Kohlberg supports this assumption by showing that moral reasoning is very
consistent across the dilemmas on his test. However, the nine dilemmas on the MJI were
developed specifically to produce consistency by assessing the highest level of competence
available to an individual.
Krebs and his colleagues (Krebs et al., 1989; Krebs, Denton, Vermeulen, Carpendale,
& Bush, 199 1;Krebs, Vermeulen, & Denton, 1991;Krebs & Denton, in press) have found
that people generally score lower on real-life dilemmas than they do on Kohlberg's test.
Krebs et al. have concluded that people do not always use the same cognitive structures or
perform at their level of moral competence when making real-life moral decisions (Krebs,
Denton et al., 1991; Krebs, Vermeulen et al., 1991; Carpendale & Krebs, 1992,1995).
Indeed, Krebs, Denton et al. (1991) have argued that &
the
l stages people have acquired are
available to them and may be invoked when so demanded by the situation. While these
findings do not challenge Kohlberg's claim that his measure assesses the highest level of
competence achieved, they do challenge his structure of the whole assumption. Krebs,
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
7
Denton et al. (1991) conclude that their findings are most consistent with an interactive,
additivelinclusive model such as the one proposed by Levine (1979) in which moral
development "can be understood as describing a process of stage acquisition in which higher
stages include components of earlier stages but do not replace these stages" (p. 155).
The second problem with Kohlberg and Candee's (1984) model is that they assume
that moral reasoning produces deontic choices, that is, moral reasoning precedes deontic
choice. However, on Kohlberg's test (MJI), people make the deontic choice first (Should
Heinz steal the drug?), then offer arguments in support of the choice--moral reasoning
follows moral choice. Evidence from social psychology suggests that the content of selfjustification may be affected by the preceding decision (e.g., cognitive dissonance; hindsight
effects; Fischhoff, 1975). In addition, although Kohlberg assumes little or no systematic
relation between stage and deontic choice at lower stages, evidence shows that some deontic
choices (e.g., steal the drug) led to higher moral maturity scores than other choices (e-g., do
not steal the drug) (Nisan & Koriat, 1989; Carpendale & Krebs, 1992).
A third problem is that Kohlberg and Candee's (1984) third and fourth functions--
judgments of responsibility or obligation and ego controls--are often neglected when
examining the relation between moral judgment and behaviour. Although Kohlberg and
Candee have argued that ego controls and judgments of responsibility mediate between moral
judgment and moral action, most other researchers have not assessed either judgment of
responsibility or ego controls in relation to moral judgment or in relation to behaviour. The
failure to include some measures of the constructs might account for the weak-to-moderate
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
8
correlations between judgment and behaviour (Blasi, 1980; Kohlberg & Candee, 1984). The
first step toward including judgments of responsibility and ego controls in Kohlberg's model
might be to include standard, global measures of personality to confirm the relation between
personality traits, moral reasoning, and behaviour.
The Current Study
The overriding goals of this study were to evaluate central aspects of Kohlberg's
model, to explore possible revisions, and to examine one alternative--the interaction
additive/inclusive model. The major focus was on the moral judgments made about a nonKohlbergian dilemma and the relation between judgment and behaviour. A minor goal was
to examine the possibility that personality measures could be used as a way of assessing
judgments of responsibility and non-moral ego controls postulated by Kohlberg and Candee
(1984), and consequently, to compare the ability of moral judgment alone to predict
behaviour with the ability of moral judgment
judgments of responsibility and ego
control to predict behaviour.
The first step was to design a context in which participants who differed in
personality could exhibit some level of moral behaviour that could be measured in some
discrete way, and about which participants could generate moral arguments, which, in turn,
could be scored for stage of moral reasoning. The goals of this research required the design
to include measures of: 1) individual differences in personality, 2) competence on moral
reasoning, 3) moral behaviour, and 4) reasoning about the moral behaviour. Standardized
measures of personality and moral reasoning were available and a procedure for assessing
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
9
moral reasoning about real-life dilemmas offered some guidance for the development of a
study-specific measure of moral reasoning. The second step was to create an appropriate
dilemma.
Distributive iustice dilemma. Colby and Kohlberg (1987) outlined three independent
types of justice, distributive justice, commutativejustice, and corrective justice, and a fourth
dependent type, procedural justice. Distributivejustice, "the way in which society or a third
party distributes 'honor, wealth, and other desirable assets of the community"' based on
"equality, desert, merit...and, finally, equity" is central to all stages of Kohlberg's model
(Colby & Kohlberg, 1987, p. 24). Distributivejustice dilemmas range in complexity fiom
the fair division of candy between children to concerns about human rights and values.
Previous research has used distributive justice dilemmas to study the relation between moral
judgment and behaviour (Carpendale & Krebs, 1992,1995; Damon, 1977).
I devised a distributive justice task that required participants to distribute a finite
resource (money) to other members of their "working group." The money could not be
distributed equally (10 X $2.00 bills14 participants). The amount of money kept for self
could be measured accurately and deemed as more or less self-benefitting. Participants were
asked to generate arguments about the decisions they made--arguments that could be scored
for stage of moral reasoning. The dependent variables were: 1) the amount of money kept for
self--"money kept" (resource allocation behaviour), and 2) the level of moral reasoning used
to justify the amount of money kept (distributive justice moral maturity--DJMM).
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
10
Issues Related to Kohlberg's (1984) Model
Issue 1. The first issue concerned whether people invoke the same level of moral
reasoning on a hypothetical, resource allocation dilemma when responding to it fiom a firstperson versus third-person perspective. Kohlberg's test (MJI) asks people to respond in the
third-person, but real-life dilemmas generally invoke first-person reasoning. With content
held constant, would the degree to which a person self-projects into the dilemma affect his or
her moral judgment?
There has been only one study on the first-persodthird-person perspective-taken issue
using Kohlberg's test. Krebs, Vermeulen, Denton, and Carpendale (1994) failed to find any
differences between people's level of moral judgment when they responded in the thirdperson versus in the first-person to four of Kohlberg's hypothetical dilemmas. In their
review of the literature, Krebs et al. (1994) had found three studies of the effect of thirdperson versus first-person perspectives on Rest's Defining Issues Test @IT); however, they
concluded that the combined evidence fiom the studies was inconclusive; for example,
perspective differences were evident for high school and college age participants, but were
not evident for older participants, and, in one study, there were complex sex differences. I
wondered whether or not the Krebs et al. findings would generalize to the resource allocation
dilemma. Related to this issue was whether people would allocate more money to
themselves in the hypothetical first-person dilemma than they would in the hypothetical
third-person dilemma.
To test the comparison of interest, two groups completed the tasks under different
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
11
instructions. One group responded to a hypothetical, third-person "Fred" dilemma similar to
the dilemmas on Kohlberg's test, but based on the distributive justice task used in this study.
A second group, operating under "imagine self' instructions, responded to the same
hypothetical distributive justice dilemma as the "Fred" group, except they were asked to
imagine that they were faced with the dilemma.
Issue 2. The second issue examined whether people invoke different structures of
moral judgment before they make a moral decision than they do after making a decision, and
whether this relation affects their decisions and their behaviour. As outlined earlier,
Kohlberg and Candee (1984) assume that people engage in a rapid, unconscious, stageconsistent form of moral reasoning that gives rise to a deontic choice, which, in turn, leads to
behaviour. However, some social psychological evidence suggests that people make (moral)
decisions and act on those decisions without engaging in moral reasoning (e-g., emergency
helping behaviour; Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner, & Clark, 1981) .
In this study, I tested whether there were differences between level of moral reasoning
indicated before versus after resource allocation decisions. It seemed plausible that evoking
moral reasoning before the allocation decision would result in a higher level of moral
reasoning and a less self-benefitting decision than evoking reasoning after the decision.
Although the beforelafter question has been raised as being theoretically relevant (Saltzstein,
1994), to my knowledge, there is no past research on this issue.
To test the comparison of interest, two groups completed the tasks under different
instructions. One group was asked to engage in and record their moral reasoning before
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
12
making the resource allocation decision, while a second group was asked to make their
resource allocation decision first, then record their moral reasoning. From Saltzstein's (1994)
perspective, both the amount of money kept and DJMM could be influenced by time of
reasoning, with participants engaged in moral reasoning before making the allocation
decision keeping less money and invoking higher levels of moral reasoning to justifi their
decisions than participants who reasoned after the decision. From Kohlberg's perspective,
there should not be any time of reasoning differences.
Issue 3. The third issue was whether Kohlberg's "structure of the whole" assumption,
that is, that all moral judgments will be at the same or adjacent stages across dilemmas,
would extend to the distributive justice dilemma used in this study. Consistent with the
additive/inclusivemodel (Levine, 1979; Krebs, Denton et al., 1991) and the Krebs,
Vermeulen et al. (1 991) finding that moral reasoning scores on Kohlberg's dilemmas are
higher than scores on other moral dilemmas, the prediction was that Kohlberg's Moral
Maturity (KMM) scores would be higher than the DJMM scores across all groups.
Issue 4. The fourth issue, related to the first and third issues, was whether the degree
of similarity between a non-Kohlbergian dilemma and Kohlberg's dilemmas would affect the
similarity between the respective moral reasoning scores. Logically, the more similar a
dilemma is to Kohlberg's dilemmas in terms of administration format, content, and structure
(hypothetical to real-life), the more similar should be the moral reasoning scores. For
example, Bush, Krebs, and Carpendale (1993) found that changing the content of one of
Kohlberg's dilemmas (i.e., replacing the victim--Heinz's wife who is dying of cancer--with a
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
13
homosexual dying of AIDS) did not result in lower stage reasoning; participants invoked the
same moral reasoning for both the AIDS dilemma and Kohlberg's dilemma.
In this study, participants in the "Fred" and "imagine self' groups responded to a
purely hypothetical resource allocation dilemma that was most similar in administration
format to Kohlberg's dilemmas. Another group responded to the resource allocation
dilemma in a real group setting, but the consequences were limited to the distribution of play
money. Participants in the remaining group were asked to distribute $20.00 real money, any
or all of which they could keep. Because the consequences were real, the dilemma faced by
this group was the least similar to those on Kohlberg's test. The prediction was there would
be a positive relation between KMM and DJMM scores, with the relation being the strongest
in the hypothetical, then the play, then the real conditions.
Issue 5. The fifth issue concerned whether or not the conseauences of a decision
about how to allocate resources would have any impact on the decision and the moral
reasoning used to justify it. A purely hypothetical or play-money allocation decision has no
consequences compared to an allocation decision involving real money, which may have
sufficient potential self-benefit to affect behaviour and reasoning about that behaviour.
Little research has examined the relation between level of consequence and the level
of moral reasoning used to justify the moral decisions. Carpendale and Krebs (1995) created
a real-life distributive justice dilemma, which asked how many of a product's defects a seller
should reveal to a buyer, that asked participants to allocate actual money to self, as the
"seller" of defective goods, and to another individual, the "buyer." Half the participants had
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
14
real money to allocate; the other half of the participants responded to the same dilemma in
the traditional hypothetical format. Contrary to their prediction, Carpendale and Krebs found
that people distributing real money actually kept less money and reasoned at a higher moral
level than people who responded to the hypothetical dilemma. There are several aspects of
the design of the Carpendale and Krebs study that may have produced the counter-intuitive
findings. First, the consequences for the "buyer" were salient in the study. Indeed
Carpendale and Krebs suggested that participants, who were "sellers," identified with the
"buyers." Second, the comparison between the hypothetical and consequential conditions
confounded administration format with degree of consequence. To test the effect of level of
consequence requires three levels of consequence: hypothetical--knowing there are
other
people involved; non-consequential--knowing there are other people involved but without
consequences; and, consequential--knowing there are other people involved, with
consequences.
If identifying with the recipient accounted for the Carpendale and Krebs (1995)
findings, then participants in this study responding to a real dilemma would be expected to
behave most generously because the ("real") recipient would be more salient than the
hypothetical recipients. Alternatively, if people are motivated to advance their own interests
(economic model), then participants making hypothetical decisions should keep the least
money and people making real consequence decisions should keep the most money.
In summary, as originally predicted by Carpendale and Krebs (1995), I expected that
money kept and DJMM would be influenced by the reality of the consequences (hypothetical,
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
15
play, or real money). I expected participants who made the decision about how to distribute
real money to keep more money and invoke lower levels of moral reasoning to justify the
decision than participants making the decision about distributing play money. 1 expected
participants who made purely hypothetical decisions (Fred and Imagine Self) to prescribe
keeping the least money and invoke the highest levels of moral reasoning.
Issue 6. The sixth issue related to the link between behaviour and judgment; is selfbenefitting behaviour related to low level moral reasoning? As outlined above, selfbenefitting behaviour is most easily justified at Stage 2 in Kohlberg's system. Carpendale
and Krebs (1995) reported that people who kept more money for themselves (selfish
behaviour) invoked lower levels of moral reasoning to justify their behaviour than people
who kept less money (generous behaviour) and visa versa. I expected to find a similar
relation even though it would be inconsistent with Colby and Kohlberg's (1987) model (the
structure of the whole assumption). I expected that the money kept scores would be inversely
related to DJMM and KMM scores and further, there would be a stronger relation between
the DJMM, which involved reasoning about the amount of money kept, and the amount of
money kept than between KMM, which did not pertain to the behavioural decision, and the
amount of money kept.
Issue 7. The seventh issue, although not a primary focus of this study, pertained to
whether or not there would be sex differences across any of the variables of interest in the
study. Kohlberg's model and measure have been criticized for penalizing women (Gilligan,
1982), yet a number of researchers have suggested that no bias has been conclusively
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
16
demonstrated (Wark & Krebs, 1996; Walker, 1988). Carpendale and Krebs (1995) used an
exclusively male sample to avoid sex difference complications. Major and Deaux (1982)
reported complex sex interaction effects on allocation tasks, with women generally keeping
less of a reward than men did. Therefore, participants completed this study in same-sex
groups, and I predicted that women would keep less money than men kept and use higher
levels of moral reasoning to justify their decisions.
Exploring the Relation between Personality. Moral Reasoning. and Behaviour
Issues 8 and 9. The eighth and ninth issues were whether personality traits would be
related to moral maturity and moral behaviour. As mentioned earlier, Kohlberg and Candee
(1984) have assessed the non-moral "follow through" aspects of their model; however, most
other researchers have not examined them in any detail. It might be argued that these
individual differences could be assessed using a global measure of personality. In this study,
I used the most general, broadly based, easily administered measures of personality available
to explore the relation between the Big 5 personality traits, moral judgment, and behaviour
(the content of the measures used and related research are outlined in Appendix A).
To review, at step 3 of Kohlberg and Candee's (1984) model people make judgments
of responsibility or judgments of commitment to follow through on deontic choice. One trait
domain, "conscientiousness," seemed conceptually similar to Kohlberg and Candee's (1984)
step 3 functions. McCrae and Costa (1990) describe conscientious people as "adhering
scrupulously to their moral precepts and rigorously fulfilling their social and civic duties" (p.
4 9 , and, noted that "(L)ow scorers are not necessarily lacking in moral principles, but they
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
17
are less exacting in applying them...(Costa & McCrae, 1992, p. 16). I expected there would
be a relation between conscientiousness and, a) moral maturity, and b) the amount of money
allocated to others.
Step 4 in Kohlberg and Candee's (1984) model are the non-moral "ego controls."
One trait domain, labelled "openness" by Trapnell and Wiggins (1990) and "openness to
experience" by Costa and McCrae (1992) seemed conceptually similar to ego controls.
Openness to experience, as an individual difference domain, has been labelled a number of
different ways including intellect, culture, and intelligence (Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990) and is
positively correlated with measures of divergent thinking ability and sensation seeking
(McCrae, 1987), and Personality Research Form needs for change, sentience, and
understanding scales (McCrae, 1990). Johnson and Ostendorf (1993) have argued that the
openness to experience domain might be better labelled as intellect, while McCrae (1993-94)
reported only weak to moderate correlations with WAIS-R intelligence scores.
The Openness items of Trapnell and Wiggins (1990) measure seem to reflect the
broad nature of the construct; for example, the positively loaded terms are: philosophical,
abstract-thinking, imaginative, inquisitive, reflective, literary, questioning, individualistic,
unconventional, broad-minded, and the negatively loaded terms are: conventional, unartistic,
unliterary, unreflective, uncomplex, unimaginative, unabstract, unsearching, uninquisitive,
and unphilosophical. Higher levels of moral reasoning require cognitive skills that might be
captured by terms like philosophical, abstract-thinking, inquisitive, and reflective. I expected
there would be a positive relation between openness and, a) moral maturity, and b) the
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
18
amount of money allocated to others.
Sumrnarv of Study Elements
All participants--university undergraduate students--completed one or two
standardized measures of personality and Kohlberg's measure of moral maturity. Each
participant was asked to make a decision about how $20.00 "bonus money" should be
divided among the four members of a group, with the self included as one of the four. The
dilemma participants faced resulted fiom the fact that the "bonus money," in $2.00 bills,
could not be evenly divided among four group members.
To test all the comparisons of interest, six groups completed the tasks under different
-
instructions as outlined above (Issues 1 4). All participants completed: 1) Kohlberg's MJI,
2) the Interpersonal Adjective Scale Revised--Big 5 (IASR-B5; Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990),
and, with the exception of one group of participants (third-person hypothetical), 3) the
Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R, Costa & McCrae, 1992). Additionally, I
designed an instrument, called the Decision Reasoning Questionnaire (DRQ), to assess moral
reasoning about the distributivejustice behaviour. The various tasks and measures
completed by each of the six groups are outlined in Table 1.
Method
Participants
The sample was composed of 229 (1 16 women,' 113 men) undergraduate student
volunteers fiom Simon Fraser University. Twenty-six participants (10 women, 16 men)
completed only one of two components of the study, two male participants failed to follow
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
19
instructions? leaving 201 participants (106 women, 95 men). An examination of the
demographic variables for all groups showed no consistent differences between participants
who completed the research and participants who did not, with the distribution of incomplete
participation across the six conditions seeming random. The participants in this sample were
typical of the undergraduate population, with a mean age of 20.5 years (N = 229, range 16 49; women M = 20.5, men M = 20.6), and, of those participants reporting a GPA, women
reporting a significantly higher GPA than men did (women M = 3.1 7, SD = .47; men M =
2.89,
= .49), $(I68) = 3.82,
< .OO 1. Most of the participants were in their first semester
and many had not declared a major (28%), with the remainder distributed across Psychology
(20%), Business and Economics (1 7%), Arts (13%), Applied Sciences (13%), Basic Sciences
(12%), and Education (1%).
In all groups, except the "Fred" hypothetical group, 166 participants (86 women, 80
men) were asked to complete two studies that were actually two phases of a single study. In
one phase, participants were given course credit in exchange for their participation. In the
other phase, participants were paid $6.00 for their participation, a necessary part of the
distributivejustice manipulation. The order of phase completion was counterbalanced and no
order differences were found. In the Fred-Hypo group, 35 participants (20 women, 15 men)
participated in exchange for course credit in a single session.
Instrument$
Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) was used to assess
each participant's stage of moral development. Both the Revised NEO Personality Inventory
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
20
(NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the Interpersonal Adjective Scale Revised--Big 5
(IASR-B5; Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990) were used to assess the non-clinical individual
differences on five dimensions of personality. The Decision Reasoning Questionnaire (DRQ)
was designed specifically for this research and is outlined in more detail below.
Moral Judgment Interview. Form "A" of Kohlberg's test was administered following
procedures outlined by Colby and Kohlberg (1987). Form "A" includes three hypothetical
dilemmas--the Heinz dilemma (111), the Officer BrownIJudge dilemma (III') and the Joe
dilemma @)--eachof which is followed by a series of probe questions about the dilemma.
Responses were scored for stage according to the instructions outlined in Colby and
Kohlberg's (1987) scoring manual. Using all three dilemmas of Form "A" ensured the
stability and reliability of the overall Moral Maturity Score.
Intemersonal Adiective Scale Revised--Bin 5. All participants completed the IASRB5 (Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990)--a standard, non-clinical measure of five domains of
personality. This 124 item measure is used to assess personality and has been validated
across many samples.
Revised NEO Personality Inventory. In all except the third-person hypothetical group
(Hypo-Fred, see Table l), participants also completed the NEO-PI-R, a 240 item measure
used to assess normal personality that has been thoroughly validated across many samples
(Costa & McCrae, 1992).
The IASR-B5 and the NEO-PI-R assess similar aspects of personality, with three of
the five domains having common summary labels (Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
21
Openness). Trapnell and Wiggins (1990) report similar factor structures for both
instruments, strong correlations between their IASR-B5 16 item Dominance scale and the
NEO-PI-R Extraversion scale, and between their 16 item Nurturance scale and the NEO-PI-R
Agreeableness scale. The IASR-B5 has the advantage of taking only 15 minutes compared to
60 minutes to complete the NEO-PI-R.
Decision Reasoning Ouestionnaire!sl I designed and pilot-tested a study-specific set
of instruments for the current research. The Decision Reasoning Questionnaires (DRQs)
asked participants to give the reasons for the justice decisions made about the allocation task.
Responses to specific questions were successfully and reliably scored for moral maturity.
Moral Maturity was calculated following the same procedure reported by Krebs, Denton et al.
(199 1) for the scoring of real-life moral dilemmas.
The DRQ asked 13 questions designed to elicit reasons for decisions made, or about
to be made, and about the influence of moral principles on the decision made. In the
reasoning before (T-Bef) conditions, 10 of the items were part of the DRQ-B (B = before),
which was used to evoke moral reasoning before the money allocation task was completed.
After completing the distributive justice (money allocation) task, the final three questions, as
part of the DRQ-P (P = post-decision), asked the participants to judge the fairness or
unfairness of their actual allocation decisions. The DRQ-A (A = after), which included the
13 questions mentioned above in past-tense form, was completed after the distributivejustice
task decision was made. For the Fred-Hypo group, a third version of the instrument (DRQFred) contained the same questions as those asked on the DRQ-A, but each question was
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
22
rephrased to reflect the third-person hypothetical nature of the decision reasoning being
invoked. Details about the design, content, and the questions are included in Appendix B.
Demographic questionnaire. To maintain the fiction of two separate studies, all
participants except those in the Fred condition completed two short demographic
questionnaires, one at the beginning of each phase in which they participated.
Procedure
Third-~ersonhypothetical--Fred condition. Participants in the hypothetical Fred
condition were given a take-home questionnaire package to complete in exchange for
psychology course credit; 35 of 36 were completed and returned. Participants were
instructed to complete the demographic questionnaire, then respond to a purely hypothetical
dilemma faced by a character, Fred, who participated in a study that included a distributive
justice task. After reading the scenario in which: 1) Fred had been randomly assigned the
role of "coordinator" for a nominal group of three bbwriters"whose task it was to write
arguments against the legalization of marijuana; 2) Fred had completed a personality
questionnaire; 3) Fred had read and ranked the arguments produced by the three writers; then
participants were asked to suggest how Fred should distribute some bonus money. After
recording how much money Fred should give to each of the three writers and how much he
should keep for himself, participants completed the DRQ-Fred by responding to the questions
about what Fred should have done and why (see Appendix C). Participants then completed
the IASR-B5, followed by Kohlberg's test in a fixed order to control any priming effects the
DRQ-Fred might have on the MJI. Participants in the Fred condition received an extensive
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
23
written debriefing form when they returned their completed packages (see Appendix D).
Ex~erimentaland "Imagine Self' conditions. Participants in the remaining five
conditions participated in two seemingly separate studies, with the only connection between
the two studies being the "long and expensi~e"~
personality measure (NEO-PI-R), scores that
would be "used by two different researchers."
Ouestionnaire/manipulationorder. After consenting to participate in the research and
completing research participation credit documentation, participants completed two paperand-pencil measures, in counterbalanced order: Form A of Kohlberg's Moral Judgment
Interview (MJI) and the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Next, participants were
partially debriefed (see Appendix D, Sections B & C) and reminded of their commitment to
participate in the second study the following week--same time, different room, and with a
different researcher.
When participants (all in same sex groups) arrived to participate in the second study,
they were informed they had been randomly assigned to the nominal, four person condition,
one of several conditions in the study (details of the bogus conditions and the explanations
used to describe nominal groups are included in Appendix E). The researcher told the group
"your task as a group is to write arguments opposing the legalization of marijuana," and that
one member of the group would be randomly assigned the role of "coordinator." The
coordinator's task was described as assuming responsibility for the final product, which
meant "picking the best argument fiom each set of arguments written by the other group
members" (in fact, & participants were assigned the coordinator role and received pre-
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
24
written arguments).
Participants were asked to give consent to a random drawing for task assignment and
to the idea that they might be evaluated by--or required to evaluate--the other participants.
Participants were paid $6.00 each, in $2.00 bills, then asked to provide their home addresses
on stamped envelopes in which the researcher would mail, in due course, the full debriefing
information (see Appendix D, Section A). Each participant then picked, at random, a
research package and went to a separate, sound-dampened research cubicle before opening it.
Participants who had picked the "imagine self' condition package were instructed to move to
a separate research space to complete the questionnaires at their own pace.
When participants opened their package, they all found they had been assigned the
coordinator role and were given additional information about the coordinator's
responsibilities (see Appendix F, Section A). Coordinators were instructed to complete the
demographic questionnaire and the IASR-B5 personality questionnaire while the other
members of their group supposedly wrote their arguments against the legalization of
marijuana.
Each participant completed the remaining tasks as outlined below--with the minor
alterations for the T-Bef conditions (time of reasoning--Before) being noted. After
completing the personality questionnaire, participants were instructed to pick the best
argument from each set produced by each of the other three members of their nominal group
within a 15 minute time limit (see Appendix F, Section B). At this point, approximately 20
minutes after participants had moved into the research cubicles, the researcher delivered a set
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
25
of fieshly hand-written arguments for them to rank order.
After completing the ranking task and a final question about whether or not marijuana
should be legalized in Canada (should be = 1 to should NOT be = 7, N = 166, M = 5.00, SD
= 1.90, unrelated to any other variable), participants sealed the handwritten arguments and
the ranking sheet in a large envelope, then read a new set of instructions that had been
delivered with the written arguments. The instructions informed the participants that they, as
coordinators, were obliged to determine how to distribute the $20.00 bonus money the
researcher had given to the group, but about which the other group members knew nothing.
The coordinators had to determine how much each other group member deserved (and
received), and how much they would keep for themselves. Participants were assured that all
decisions they made would be completely confidential. The instructions made it clear that
the 10 X $2.00 bills could be distributed in any fashion and noted the impossibility of
distributing the $2.00 bills equally (see Appendix G, Section A for two examples).
Participants in the time of reasoning--Before (T-Bet) conditions were instructed to
complete the DRQ-B before distributing the money. In the play conditions, the instructions
noted that participants would be allocating play money only. The instructions asked
participants to distribute the money by placing it in labelled envelopes (and their own pockets
in the real conditions), then to seal the envelopes and slide them through the communication
tube in the side of each cubicle so the researcher could distribute them accordingly.
After completing the allocation task and depositing the envelopes, participants were
asked to complete the last component. For participants in the T-Bef conditions, this entailed
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
26
completing the DRQ-P; for the participants in the T-Aft and the imagine self condition, it
entailed completing the DRQ-A. After participants signalled they had completed the DRQ
(A or P), the researcher collected their final questionnaires, provided verbal and written
debriefing information, requested that they refrain from discussing the research with
classmates, answered immediate questions, thanked them for their efforts and ushered each of
them, one at a time, out of the research reception area in order to maintain anonymity for "all
participants." Complete debriefing information was mailed to all participants at the end of
the study.
Ima~ineSelf condition. Participants in the imagine self condition completed all
components of the play money-reasoning after condition, with three modifications: 1) the
beginning of each set of instructions was preceded by either the phrase or sentence: "Please
imagine that ...."or, "Please imagine yourself in the following situation," 2) the "workers"
sheets were photocopies, and 3) participants completed the task knowing that there were no
other group members (see Appendix H).
Scoring and Analvse~
Kohlberp's Moral Maturity, The dilemmas on Kohlberg's test were scored following
the procedure outlined by Colby and Kohlberg (1987). The scoring procedure produces two
scores: a) global stage scores from Stage 1 to Stage 5, and b) Moral Maturity Scores (MMS)
also called "weighted average scores (WAS)" which range fkom 100 to 500 (Colby &
Kohlberg, 1987, pp. 158-188). Although WAS were calculated for each of the three
dilemmas, "overall" WAS were used for the analyses (KMM).
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
27
One very experienced scorer, blind to the purpose of the study, scored photocopies of
all dilemmas. A second expert scorer, also blind to the purpose of the study and blind to the
first set of scores, scored a random selection (25 male and 25 female) of the dilemmas. Interrater reliability was 98% agreement within 50 WAS points (one-half stage), 92% agreement
within 33 WAS points (one-third stage), with an overall 1(5O)=.71, ~ < . 0 1.
0
Personality measures. Both the IASR-B5 (Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990) and the NEOPI-R (Professional Manual; Costa & McCrae, 1992) were scored in accordance with provided
instructions.
DecisionTo confirm that there were enough moral issues
recorded by participants for accurate and reliable scoring, I examined the DRQ protocols.
Content analysis of the responses to the question "What are the main issues involved in this
decision?" revealed that many issues which might be considered non-moral were invoked in
the decision-making process. When I defined the moralhon-moral distinction by
differentiating between clearly moral issues (e.g.: fairness) versus less clearly moral issues
(e.g.: quality of work), only 25% of the issues were rated as clearly moral issues. Although
75% of the issues recorded by the participants to this question were obviously not moral in
nature, overall, the 13 questions of the DRQ did provide sufficient material for scoring.
The DRQ was scored by the same two expert scorers who scored the MJI, in reverse
roles, with both being blind to the specific hypotheses of the study. The scorers worked
together with the DRQ protocols fiom two pilot studies--Pilot-study One (N_ = 30) and Pilotstudy Two (N_ = 25)--to develop a reliable scoring system for the content-specific elements of
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
28
the instrument. Each DRQ was given both a global stage score (e.g., 1, 1/2,2,2/3, etc.) and a
WAS which I called the Distributive Justice Moral Maturity score (DJMM). Inter-rater
reliability was 94% agreement within 50 points (one-half stage), 76% agreement within 33
points (one-third stage) with an overall 1(50)=.68, ~<.001.
Analvses. To examine differences between the two hypothetical groups, I compared
their mean scores on the two dependent variables. To examine the effect of time of reasoning
(before and after) and consequence (real and play), I computed 2 X 2 ANOVAs on the two
dependent variables. To examine differences between KMM and DJMM, I compared mean
scores for each condition and overall. To examine the strength of the relation between KMM
and DJMM, I computed Pearson correlations for each condition. To examine the effect of
consequence (real, play, hypo), I computed one-way ANOVAs on the two dependent
variables followed by planned comparison^.^ To examine the strength of the relation
between KMM, DJMM, and the amount of money kept, I computed Pearson correlations.
To examine the effect of sex and consequence, I computed 2 X 3 ANOVAs on the two
dependent variables, followed by planned comparisons. To examine the strength of the
relation between personality traits, moral reasoning, and behaviour, I computed Pearson
correlations and multiple regressions.
Results
Scores on Standard and Studv Suecific Measures
Scores on the three standard measures were compared with published reports. In all
cases, the scores reported for this sample were comparable to the published values.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
29
Kohlbere's KMM scores are reported in Table 2. There were no sex
differences within or across the three dilemmas on Kohlberg's test, nor were there any
significant differences between any of the conditions, E(5, 195) < 1.
Interpersonal Adjectives Scale Revised - Big 5. The IASR-B5 scores are reported in
Table 3. In their large study (N_ = 941), Trapnell and Wiggins (1990) reported small to
moderate sex differences on four of the five domain scales. Only one small and significant
sex difference was replicated in this sample (which had a much smaller N) with women
having slightly higher Neuroticism scale scores than men, g(199) = 2.72, p < .Ol.
Revised NEO Personality Inventow. The mean domain scale scores, standard
deviations, and the direction and size of sex differences were similar to those reported by
Costa and McCrae (1992, Table B-3, p. 77). Three small and significant sex differences were
found, with women scoring higher than men on the Agreeableness, Openness, and
Neuroticism domains (see Table 4).
As expected, the correlations between the five related-content domains of the NEOPI-R and the IASR-B5 were strongly positive and larger than for any of the remaining
correlations (see Table 5). Although the IASR-B5 and the NEO-PI-R do not measure exactly
the same constnrcts, analyses revealed striking similarity between their relations to KMM,
DJMM, and the mean amount of money kept. Examination of the NEO-PI-R domain and
separate facet scores in relation to the variables of interest did not reveal any findings that
varied significantly fiom those related to the IASR-B5. For this reason, and because the
IASR-B5 scores were available for the fidl sample, it seemed most parsimonious to report
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
30
only the analyses with the IASR-B5 scores.
Examination of Issues
Hypothetical first-person versus third-person. Although the mean DJMM scores of
the "Fred" group (M = 290.4, SD = 57) were higher than the mean DJMM scores of the
"imagine self' group (M_ = 273.1, SD = 25.8), the difference was not statistically significant,
t(64) = 1.5, m. The mean amount of money kept for the "Fred" group (M_ = $5.60, SD =
3.84) also was not significantly different fiom the mean amount of money kept for the
"imagine self' group &
=
I$5.48,
= 3.50),
l(64) < 1, m. Because no significant
differences were found between the Fred and imagine self groups, the two groups were
collapsed into a single condition (hypo).
Time of reasoning. Time of reasoning had no effect on amount of money kept or on
DJMM, both E(1, 131) < 1, m,nor were there any significant interactions with consequence.
Therefore, time of reasoning was collapsed across consequences (real and play) in all further
analyses.
To summarize, preliminary comparisons showed that: 1) the "Fred" and "imagine
self' group scores were not significantly different on either dependent variable; therefore, the
two groups were collapsed into a single "hypo" condition; 2) time of reasoning also failed to
produce any significant differences, so time of reasoning was collapsed across levels of
consequence. All further analyses were conducted with three consequence groups: hypo
= 66), play (N_ = 67), and real
(N_ = 68).
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
31
g Decision Reasoning Ouestionnaire scores. As shown in Table 6, the overall mean
DJMM score was positively correlated with but significantly lower than the overall mean
KMM score.
A comparison among the Pearson correlations between KMM and DJMM scores in
each group revealed interesting, but non-significant differences in the strength of the relation
between the two measures. The predicted pattern, with the strongest relation between KMM
and DJMM in the hypo groups, followed by the play groups, and the weakest relation in the
real groups, was not found. The relation between KMM and DJMM tended to be stronger in
the play groups, ~(67)= .40, p < .001, than in either the real groups, ~(68)= .33, p < .01, or
the hypo groups, ~(66)= .27, p < .05, but the differences between correlations were not
statistically significant.
Distributive Justice Behaviour and Reasoning bv &OUD
Monev kept bv condition. There was a significant difference between groups for the
amount of money kept E(2, 198) = 9.26, p < .001; although, the pattern of scores was not
exactly as predicted (see Table 7). In line with my prediction, participants in the real groups
kept more money than participants in the play or hypo groups, but the difference between
groups was significant only for the comparison between the real and play groups, l(133) =
4.49, p < .001, with the hypo group scores falling between the two other groups.'
DJMM scores bv condition. Contrary to prediction, participants in the hypo groups
did not have the highest DJMM scores (see Table 7). Although there was a significant
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
32
difference between groups, E(2, 198) = 3.61, Q < .05, the hypo group scores and the real
group scores were both significantly lower than the play group scores, t(13 1) = 2.39,
Q=
.042, and i(133) = 2.05, p = .018, respectively.
Relation between Moral Judmnent and Behaviour
Monev kept and DJMM. The relation between DJMM and the amount of money kept
across all conditions was in the predicted direction, but very weak, ~(201)= .-15, p < -05,
one-tailed. The correlation was strongest in the real consequence condition, ~(68)= -.3 1, Q <
.01. The correlations in the other two conditions approached zero and were not significantly
different fiom the real consequence condition correlation.
Monev kept and KMM. The relation between KMM and the amount of money kept
across all conditions was also in the predicted direction, but very small, ~(201)= -.18, p < .01,
one-tailed. Again the correlation was strongest in the real consequence condition, ~ ( 6 8=
).3 1, B < .01, and the correlations in the other two conditions were non-significant; play group,
-r(67) = -.02; hypo group, ~(66)= -.16. These correlations were not significantly different
from the real consequence condition correlation. The global measure of moral maturity--
KMM--was not more strongly related to the amount of money kept than was the more
specific measure of distributive justice reasoning (DJMM).
Sex Differences
Monev k e ~ t .Examining the effect of sex and consequence on the amount of money
kept revealed a main effect for sex, E(1, 195) = 6.35, p < .05, with no significant interactions.
Men kept significantly more money, N_ = 95, M = $6.10, SD = 3.83, than women did, N =
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
106,
33
= $4.91, SD = 3.11.
DJMM scores. Examining the effect of sex and consequence on DJMM revealed a
main effect for sex, '(1,
195) = 3.94, p < .05, qualified by a sex by consequence interaction,
F(2, 195) = 5.45, g < .Ol. However, the main effect for sex and the sex by consequence
interaction were wholly due to the hypo condition sex difference, t(64) = -4.21, p < .001, with
no DJMM differences between men and women in the play condition or in the real condition
(see Table 8).
Comparing the differences between KMM and DJMM mean scores across
consequence conditions highlights the extent of the sex difference in the hypo condition (see
Table 8). Post hoc analyses revealed that men in the hypo conditions had much greater
discre~ancvscores between their KMM and DJMM scores, M = 54.7, SD = 39.9, pair-wise
t(29) = 7.50, p < .001, than men in the other two consequence conditions, M = 24.7, SD =
5 1.3, pair-wise g(64) = 3.89, p < .001, or than women in the hypo condition, M = 16.5, SQ =
43.1, pair-wise t(35) = 2.29, p < .05, and the other two consequence conditions,
= 42.4,
= 22.3, SQ
pair-wise t(69) = 4.40, Q < -001.
1
ni
d Behaviour
IASR-B5 trait domains and KMM. The KMM scores were not significantly
correlated with IASR-BS Conscientiousness, d201) = .06, m. The KMM scores were
positively correlated with IASR-B5 Openness across all conditions, ~(201)= .33, Q < .01.
The correlations for each consequence condition were: real, ~(68)= .3 1, Q < .05; play, ~(67)
= .32, Q < .01;
hypo, ~(66)= .40, Q < .01, with no significant differences between any pair of
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
34
correlations. No other correlations between KMM scores and IASR-B5 domains were
significant.
IASR-BS trait domains and DJMM. The DJMM scores were not significantly
correlated with IASR-B5 Conscientiousness, ~(201)= -.04, m. The DJMM scores, compared
across consequence conditions, were weakly correlated with IASR-B5 Openness, ~(201)=
.187, p < .01. In the hypo condition, the DJMM scores were positively correlated with IASR) .27, g < .0S, and in the real condition, negatively related to IASRB5 Neuroticism ,~ ( 6 6=
B5 Conscientiousness, ~(68)= -.30, p < .05, directly opposite to my expectation.
IASR-B5 trait domains and monev k e ~ t .Across all conditions
a= 201), only IASR-
B5 Openness was significantly, although weakly, correlated with the amount of money kept
for self, r(201) = -.182, p < .01. Only one condition-specific correlation achieved
significance; in the hypo condition, IASR-B5 Neuroticism was related to the amount of
money kept, ~(66)= -235, p < .05.
Predictinp Behaviour
KMM were predictive of the amount of money kept, but very weakly,
B = .18, E(1,
199) =6.77, p < .05, accounting for only 3% of the variance. Including IASR-B5 Openness
with KMM increased the predictive ability, still very weak, & = .22,32, 198) = 5.16, p <
-01, but they accounted for 5% of the variance. Examination of the correlations between the
amount of money kept and KMM, g(20 1) = -.18 1, p < -01, and the amount of money kept and
Openness, ~(201)= -.182, p < .01, revealed that KMM and Openness were nearly equivalent
predictors of the amount of money kept. Because the correlation between KMM and the
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
35
amount of money kept was strongest in the real condition, ~(68)= -.3 1, Q < .01, I examined
KMM and Openness with the amount of money kept for each group. For the real condition
only, KMM were predictive of the amount of money kept, R = .3 1, F(1,66) = 7.13, p < .0 1,
and including Openness accounted for a small increase, R = .33, F(2,65)
=3.86,~
< .05.
Discussion
The data confirmed several previous findings and offered new insights into some
aspects of the relation between moral reasoning, personality, and decision-making behaviour.
As found in previous research: a) moral reasoning scores on Kohlberg's test were higher
than scores on the non-Kohlbergian dilemma; b) there were no sex differences in moral
reasoning on any of the Kohlbergian dilemmas; c) the moral reasoning scores were
moderately predictive of moral behaviour; and, d) the degree of relation between Kohlberg's
measure of moral reasoning and moral behaviour was mediated by the consequences of the
behaviour.
New findings suggested that: a) the relation between moral reasoning and moral
behaviour was mediated by the personal consequences of the moral decision required by the
situation; b) giving participants time and explicit instruction to engage in moral reasoning
before they made a moral decision had little effect on reasoning or behavioural decisions; c)
context and consequence differences influenced moral reasoning and decision-making
behaviour; d) men exhibited more self-benefitting behaviour than women did across all
circumstances, yet showed similar levels of moral reasoning; e) the IASR-B5 Openness score
was as predictive of moral behaviour as Kohlberg's test across all conditions. Each of the
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
36
original issues will be discussed in turn.
Issue 1: First-person versus third-person. Consistent with past research (Krebs et al.,
1994), I found that the extent to which the self is projected into hypothetical distributive
justice dilemmas-third-person versus first-person--did not affect moral reasoning and
behaviour. One explanation for this similarity is that both groups responded to a heothetical
dilemma. Although the instructions asked participants in one group to make a decision about
a hypothetical character, Fred, and in the other group to make a decision about self (imagine
self), the participants most likely responded to both dilemmas as hypothetical, and of little
personal consequence. When Krebs et al. found no difference between first versus thirdperson perspectives on four of Kohlberg's dilemmas, they argued that people probably use
the same reasoning about all hypothetical dilemmas, whether first-person or third-person. It
seems that the perspective people adopt when considering hypothetical dilemmas, whether
based on major issues like life and law in Kohlberg's dilemmas, or on a less serious issue like
the distribution of $20, has little impact on the level of moral reasoning.
The same argument--no personal consequences arising fiom hypothetical dilemmascan be applied to the failure to find any differences between the two groups for the amount of
money kept.
Issue 2: Time of reasoning. Time of reasoning about a moral dilemma did not affect
level of moral reasoning and resource allocation behaviour. Kohlberg and Candee's (1984)
model assumes that moral reasoning precedes behaviour. Kohlberg argues that because
information in moral dilemmas is processed through stage-structures, the moral maturity of
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
37
the arguments will be the same, regardless of when the decision or the reasoning is recorded.
The failure to find any reasoning-before versus reasoning-after differences is not
surprising when examined from a more social psychological perspective (reviewed by
Saltzstein, 1994). If participants in the reasoning before conditions were anticipating their
decision before reasoning--maybe a tentative decision is a necessary starting point in the
reasoning process--they may well have been engaging in the same processes as participants in
the reasoning after condition (i.e., post hoc justification).
The nature of the cognitive processes mediating decisions is open to question. People
might not be processing the information in the dilemma through moral stage structures, but
rather basing their decisions on some other rapid and unconscious cognitive process. We do
not have direct access to the processes involved, so it is difficult or impossible to determine
whether people make the decision first, then justify it; or, alternatively, they may complete a
rudimentary analysis before the decision, then revise the reasoning after the decision--which
could account for the justification effects reported in the social psychological literature. This
leaves open the question of whether or not we can ever successfully manipulate a variable
like time of reasoning.
Issue 3: KMM and DJMM scores. I predicted and found that KMM scores were
higher than DJMM scores. Past research has consistently found that people score higher on
Kohlberg's test than on more real-life like dilemmas (Krebs, Vermeulen et al., 1991). This
finding is consistent with Kohlberg's (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) contention that the MJI is
designed to measure an individual's highest moral competence. The moderate correlations
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
38
found between KMM and DJMM scores show that moral judgment on Kohlberg's test was
related to the allocation dilemma reasoning, suggesting that participants invoked moral
reasoning on the allocation task. The magnitude of the relation between moral reasoning on
the MJI and moral reasoning on the DRQ is similar to the relations between scores on the
MJI and scores on other types of dilemmas reported and reviewed by Krebs and his
colleagues (Krebs, Vermeulen et al., 1991, Bartek, Krebs, & Taylor, 1993, Carpendale &
Krebs, 1992,1995, Denton & Krebs, 1990).
While the finding that the KMM scores were higher than the DJMM scores is
consistent with Colby and Kohlberg's (1987) contention that the MJI assesses the highest
level of moral capacity, it challenges their "structure of the whole" assumption. Krebs,
Denton et al. (1 991) have argued that the additivelinclusive model (Levine, 1979), which
posits that all stages remain available, can better explain the discrepancy between moralreasoning capacity on hypothetical dilemmas and moral reasoning about real-life dilemmas.
Issue 4: KMM and DJMM scores bv eroup. I predicted, but did not find, a specific
pattern of correlations between the KMM and DJMM scores across conditions--from
strongest to weakest correlations--the hypothetical group, the play group, then the real group.
One possible reason for the failure to find the predicted relation is that the distributivejustice
dilemma constrained the level of moral reasoning used to justifl the behaviour. Carpendale
and Krebs (1992) and Krebs et al. (1994) have argued that some dilemmas pull strongly for
one or two stages of moral reasoning, leading to a restriction of the variance in the reasoning
scores. The allocation task used here was a simple distributive justice dilemma, based on the
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
39
issue of equality (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987), which could be interpreted as "strict equality"
(stage 2) or as "equality based on deservingness" (stage 3), thereby pulling for only two
stages, which could have restricted the variance. However, although the allocation dilemma
did pull mainly for stage 2 or stage 2/3 reasoning, the variance in DJMM scores was no
smaller than the variance on Kohlberg's test.
1
Consistent with an economical model, real
consequences--real money as opposed to play or hypothetical money, within the same
research context--induced participants to keep more money and to lower the level of moral
reasoning used to justifjr the decision. However, contrary to expectation, participants in the
hypothetical groups did not have the lowest money kept scores and the highest DJMM
scores, compared to the other groups. These two issues are examined below.
The finding that real consequences affected resource allocation behaviour and justicedecision reasoning seems, on the face of it, to be consistent with what Carpendale and Krebs
(1995) predicted, but inconsistent with what they found. Carpendale and Krebs predicted
participants would make a selfish decision, but these investigators found that participants
who distributed real resources (money) actually kept
for themselves and gave more to
another (i.e., behaved more generously) than participants who distributed hypothetical
money. Consistent with the findings of this study, Carpendale and Krebs found an inverse
relation between money kept and moral reasoning; that is, the participants in their
hypothetical group used significantly lower levels of moral reasoning to justify their
relatively selfish behaviour than participants in the consequential condition used to justifL
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
40
their relatively generous behaviour.
Design differences between the two studies might explain the disparate findings.
Carpendale and Krebs (1995) interpreted their unexpected findings by suggesting that the
increase in the salience of the effect of the allocation decision on the recipient might have
induced participants to take the recipients' perspective, reducing the likelihood of selfish
behaviour. In this study, however, there was no equivalent of a "particular othery'who could
be victimized; instead, there were three anonymous "others," who would know nothine about
the allocation decisions. Therefore, the design of this study may not have increased the
salience of the social consequences of selfish behaviour to the victim(s), allowing
participants to behave "as if' there were no real monetary consequences for a single
individual (diffusion of cost, both social and monetary). A related possibility is that in the
Carpendale and Krebs (1995) study the consequences to the recipient were more severe than
the diffused consequences across three recipients in this study.
I also did not expect the play group to keep less money than the hypo groups. One
explanation for this finding is that the recipients of the allocation money were more salient in
the play group than in the hypothetical groups, even though recipients were not as salient as
they were in the Carpendale and Krebs (1995) study. Participants in the hypothetical Fred
group completed a take-home package and the members of the imagine self group were
repeatedly informed that there were no other real group members. In contrast, all participants
in the play groups actually saw the other three group members, and even saw them enter
separate research cubicles, after having seen them receiving $6.00 cash for participation. The
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
41
increased salience of the other group members in the play condition may have induced
participants to behave relatively generously, compared to the participants in the hypothetical
condition. Although participants in the real condition also saw the other group members, the
pull of the self-benefitting consequence may have been sufficient to entice the participants to
keep more money. To summarize, the sight of potential victims of participants' selfishness
may have induced them to behave more generously than they believed they would when
considering the decision hypothetically, but only when there were no real costs to them.
A final possibility is that the consequences considered by the hypo groups were more
real than the consequences considered by the play group because they were asked to imagine
Fred or themselves allocating real money, whereas instructions for the play group
participants referred to "play money," with no corresponding request that they pretend it was
real money. It is possible that the participants in the play condition considered the decision
they made to be less consequential psychologically than the decisions made by the members
of the hypothetical groups.
These arguments also entail explanations for the group differences in DJMM scores-that is, that participants in the play group displayed a significantly higher level of moral
reasoning about the distributive justice task than the hypo or real groups did. Although I did
not expect the exact pattern of group differences, I expected the DJMM scores to covary
inversely with the amount of money kept, and they did. Participants in the play group were
the most generous, and they invoked the highest level of moral reasoning to justifl their
behaviour.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
42
Issue 6: Relation between moral judgment and behaviour. Consistent with
Carpendale and Krebs (1995), I predicted and found an inverse relation between the amount
of money kept and DJMM and KMM scores, but the correlations were very low and roughly
equal. These findings are not surprising given the long history of weak relations between
hypothetical measures of a construct and the behaviour the construct is supposed to predict.
Blasi's (1980) review of the literature reported only moderate correlations between MJI
scores and a variety of behaviours.
One interesting finding was that the strongest correlations, with both DJMM and
KMM scores, were for the real consequence conditions. All other correlations between the
amount of money kept and moral maturity approached zero. I expected the relation between
DJMM and behaviour to be stronger in the real consequence condition, but I expected the
relation between KMM and behavioural decisions to be weaker than the relation between
DJMM and behavioural decisions in general, and weakest in the real group in particular.
There are two types of explanations for the equally strong relation between KMM and
behaviour and DJMM and behaviour: a) Kohlberg's test assesses a more general moral
quality, like moral maturity, than the parameters of his dilemmas suggest, and b) the
behaviour assessed in this study was, at best, weakly determined by any kind of moral
reasoning. The weakness of the correlations favours the latter explanation.
Issue 7: Sex differences. As predicted, men behaved in a more self-benefitting way
than women did across all conditions. This finding is consistent with the conclusion of
Major and Deaux's (1982) review of sex differences in justice behaviour research. Mess6
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
43
and Callahan-Levy (1979) also found that women were more generous than men.
Although I found an overall sex difference reported for DJMM, with men, as
predicted, having lower scores than women, this difference was significant only for the hypo
group. In the hypo group, men, on average, scored nearly one half stage lower (42 WAS) on
the DJMM than women did. As shown in Table 8, men and women displayed predominantly
Stage 3 moral judgment in the play and real conditions. Women also displayed Stage 3
judgment in the hypothetical condition, but men scores predominantly at Stage 2/3. The
question, then, is why did men invoke more Stage 2-based judgments, or fewer Stage 3
judgments in the hypothetical group? One possibility is that Stage 2 forms of judgment are
more acceptable to men than to women, perhaps more consistent with their self-concept, but
invoked only when contextual cues are weak.
Issues 8 and 9: Relation between personalitv. moral reasoning. and behaviour.
IASR-BS Conscientiousness was not significantly related to KMM, DJMM, or the amount of
money kept. I also examined the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992) Conscientiousness
facet scores (e.g., dutifulness, orderliness) to see if there were any significant correlations
between the domain facets and moral maturity or behaviour; there were none. One possible
explanation for the lack of relatedness between Conscientiousness and moral maturity or
behaviour is the general nature of the construct as assessed by global measures of personality.
Schwartz and Howard (1981) have argued that only a specific measure of responsibility,
assessing the personal norm evoked by the situation, will be related to behaviour in a specific
situation.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
44
I found a relation between Kohlberg's measure of moral maturity and the Openness
domain score of the IASR-B5. The relation between Openness and DJMM was weaker,
although not significantly, than between Openness and KMM. One explanation is that the
DRQ is a single issue measure of moral maturity, therefore, less related to IASR-B5
Openness items like abstract-thinking than a more philosophical measure like the MJI.
I found a weak inverse correlation between Openness and the amount of money kept
for self. This parallels the relation between Openness and moral reasoning (KMM and
DJMM), suggesting that Openness is related to the allocation decision-making processes in
ways similar to moral reasoning. Although the correlations between Openness and the KMM
were moderate and the correlations between both individual difference measures (IASR-B5
and MJI)and resource allocation behaviour were weak, the overlap was sufficient to suggest
that they were related in similar ways to the allocation decision.
Summary. Predicting behaviour fiom abstract measures of a related construct has
always been difficult. Predicting behaviour that could be considered moral has been a
particular challenge. This research has demonstrated that both Kohlberg's test and the IASR-
B5 measure of personality are somewhat predictive of allocation decisions and reasoning
about those decisions on a distributive justice dilemma. It also has shown that situational
factors influence both behaviour and reasoning about the behaviour, especially real
consequences. Finally, it has confirmed that the more selfishly participants behaved, the
lower the level of moral reasoning they used to justify the behaviour.
Other findings are more difficult to interpret. Although the social psychological
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
45
literature suggests that people may engage in behaviour first, then justi@ their behaviour
later, I found no differences between the justifications used before or after behaviour. The
lack of a difference, as Kohlberg would predict, might be due to the way people process
information about moral issues, or simply due to unknown cognitive processes.
..
SerendlDltous find& The design of this study was unusual in that it included a
measure of abstract moral reasoning capacity (MJI), a measure of moral reasoning about a
real-life-like dilemma at three levels: hypothetical, no-context; hypothetical, within-context;
a measure of real-life, within-context reasoning (DRQ); and a behavioural measure. One
unanticipated finding was that scores on Kohlberg's test were more strongly related to the
real consequence behaviour than to the hypothetical or play consequence behaviour.
Although Kohlberg's test only accounted for 3% of the variance overall, it accounted for 10%
of the variance for the real consequence group, suggesting that future attempts to predict
moral behaviour will benefit from including measures of moral maturity.
The finding that Openness contributed to the prediction raises the possibility that
other individual difference measures will account for some of the unexplained variance,
especially if the measures used are specific to elements within the dilemma as opposed to the
omnibus personality measures used here. In this study at least, Openness predicted behaviour
as well as moral maturity.
Finally, the finding that people invoked more non-moral issues than moral issues
when faced with the allocation dilemma in this study suggests that people sometimes
interpret seemingly moral dilemmas in non-moral ways. Although the positive correlation
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
46
between KMM and DJMM indicates that the allocation dilemma did invoke some moral
reasoning for most participants, it is possible that many of the participants would not have
spontaneously defined and interpreted the situational information as constituting a moral
dilemma if not primed to do so by the questions of the DRQ. Future research could assess
the content of participants' spontaneous interpretations of the situation information before
priming the participants to define the situation in moral terms.
. l
.m
. ltatlo
.n
. sThere are a number of limitations in the design of
L
this study. The limitations inherent in the attempt to assess the utility of Kohlberg and
Candee's (1984) model are of two types, namely those that might be corrected by modifying
the design and those that resulted from the lack of clearly specified constructs in Kohlberg
and Candee's model. After outlining some of the modifications which might apply to future
research, the limitations with Kohlberg and Candee's model will be discussed.
One modification is needed to address the first-person versus third-person issue, an
important question that remains unanswered. The distinction used in this research between
the Fred and imagine self conditions was based on the wording of the questions on the DRQ,
with the wording on the DRQ being changed from "...all the things you considered...." in the
imagine self condition to "...all the thing you considered when deciding how Fred should...;"
the focus remained on what the participant thought about the dilemma. Future research
should attempt to move the focus toward a third-person perspective. For example, the
question could be rephrased to read, "...all the things Fred should have considered...." Such a
modification might reveal the expected differences in perspective-taking.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
47
Kohlberg and Candee (1984) have argued that the relation between moral stage andlor
deontic choice becomes stronger the closer one approaches Stage 5 moral reasoning. The
weak-to-moderate correlations between moral reasoning and moral action reported here
might result from the difficulty of designing a "real-life-like" dilemma that would yield the
data necessary to assess the whole model. The current study used a distributive justice
dilemma which seemed to pull for Stages 2,213, and 3 reasoning only. This restriction of
range was compounded by the restriction of range in people's MJI scores--there were no
participants with Stage 1 or Stage 5 KMM scores. This restriction of range would reduce the
correlations between moral reasoning and moral action, leading to a misinterpretation of the
actual relation between the two variables. Designing a "real-life-like" dilemma which would
be meaningful to people at all stages of moral development and about which their moral
reasoning about their behavioural response to the dilemma could be measured for comparison
to their MJI scores might be the only way to assess the model fully. While such a dilemma
would be a challenge to create, it might be the only way to adequately assess the utility of the
model.
The second limitation inherent in Kohlberg and Candee's (1984) model is a lack of
clear explication of steps 3 and 4 in their model--judgments of responsibility or obligation
and ego controls--especially the latter. Although Kohlberg and Candee have discussed ego
controls as including intelligence, attention, and delay of gratification, they have not clarified
exactly how these constructs relate to moral reasoning or moral behaviour. In this study,
Openness was related to both moral reasoning and moral behaviour; whether or not Openness
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
48
is related to ego controls or intelligence is unclear. Currently, there is no way to differentiate
between the intelligence necessary for moral reasoning-Colby and Kohlberg (1987) report
moral stage and measured intelligence correlations of .37 to .60 for young adults--and
"intelligence" as Kohlberg and Candee use the construct in relation to ego controls.
More functional models of the relation between moral reasoning and behaviour are
needed to adequately explain real-life dilemma reasoning and behaviour. Such models need
to look at both moral and non-moral aspects of the types of decisions people make when
confronted with dilemmas. For example, the finding that Openness and KMM were equally
correlated with the amount of money kept might suggest that there were moral and non-moral
issues involved in the distributive-justicedecision-making process, or, alternatively, it might
suggest that the common component of Openness and KMM, that is, intelligence, is the only
factor related to the behaviour. This research, in concert with previous research (Carpendale
& Krebs, 1992, 1995; Krebs, Denton et al., 1991; Krebs, Vermeulen et al., 1991; Krebs &
Denton, in press; Krebs et al. 1997) suggests that more interactive, broadly-based models
other than Kohlberg's will be better able to account for everyday moral behaviour. Many
real-life dilemmas are not easily defined in terms of distributivejustice principles. Real
people in real dilemmas are not limited by abstract philosophical or psychological models-thank goodness.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
49
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McCrae, R. R. (1987). Creativity, divergent thinking, and openness to experience.
Journal of Personality and Social Psycholog. 52,1258-1 265.
McCrae, R. R. (1990). Traits and trait names: How well is Openness represented in
natural languages? European Journal of Personalitv. 4, 119-129.
McCrae, R. R. (1993-94). Openness to experience as a basic dimension of
personality. Imarrination. Cornition and Personalitv. 13,39-55.
McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. Jr. (1989). The structure of interpersonal traits:
Wiggins' circumplex and the five-factor model. Journal of Personality and Social
Psvcholow. 56,586-595.
McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. Jr. (1990). Personality in adulthood. New York:
Guilford.
MessC, L. A., & Callahan-Levy, C. (1979). Sex and message effects on reward
allocation behavior. Academic Psvchologv Bulletin. 1, 129-133.
Nisan, M., & Koriat, A. (1989). Moral justification of acts judged to be morally right
and acts judged to be morally wrong. British Journal of Social Psvchologv. 28,213-225.
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Piliavin, J. A., Dovidio, J. F., Gaertner, S. L., & Clark, R. D. I11 (1981). Emergencv
intervention. New York: Academic Press.
Saltzstein, H. D. (1994). The relation between moral judgment and behavior: A
social-cognitive and decision-making analysis. Human Development. 37,299-3 12.
Schwartz, S. H., & Howard, J. A. (1981). A normative decision-making model of
altruism. In J. P. Rushton & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Altruism and helping: behavior, (pp.
189-211). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaurn.
Trapnell, P. D., & Wiggins, J. S. (1990). Extension of the Interpersonal Adjective
Scales to include the big five dimensions of personality. Journal of Personalitv and Social
Psvcholow. 59,78 1-790.
Walker, L. J. (1988). The development of moral reasoning. Annals of child
develovment. 5,33-78.
Wark, G. R., & Krebs, D. L. (1996). Gender and dilemma differences in real-life
moral judgment. Develoumental Ps~chologv.32,220-230.
Wiggins, J. S. (1979). A psychological taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms: The
interpersonal domain. Journal of Personalitv of Social Psvchologv. 37,395-412.
Wiggins, J. S., Trapnell, P., & Phillips, N. (1988). Psychometric and geometric
characteristics of the Revised Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS-R). Multivariate
Behavioural Research. 23,5 17-530.
53
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
54
Appendix A
Personality Measures: Conceptual Content and Related Research
One of the most widely used instruments used to assess personality is the Revised
NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R, Costa & McCrae, 1992). The five domains of the
NEO-PI-R are captured by the labels neuroticism (N), extraversion (E), openness to
experience (0),agreeableness (A), and conscientiousness (C), leading to acronyms like
OCEAN or CANOE.
Trapnell and Wiggins (1990) extended the Revised Interpersonal Adjectives Scales
(IAS-R, Wiggins, Trapnell, & Phillips, 1988) to include neuroticism, conscientiousness, and
openness domains, and used the existing terms fiom the IAS-R Assured-Dominant and
Unassured-Submissive scales to create the DOM scale, equivalent to the NEO-PI-R E
(extraversion) scale, and the existing terms fiom the IAS-R Warm-Agreeable and Coldhearted scales to create LOV scale, equivalent to the NEO-PI-R A (agreeableness) scale. The
five scales of the new measure, the IASR-Big 5 (IASR-B5) were strongly correlated to the
five domains of the NEO-PI-R (McCrae & Costa, 1989; Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990; Costa &
McCrae, 1992).
Johnson and Ostendorf (1993) examined several five factor models and measures,
suggested how yet another measure might resolve some of the disputes about the content of
each factor, and suggested different factor labels. Their factor labels (with NEO-PI-R labels
following), social communication Q, softness (A), constraint (C), fieedom fiom negative
affect (N), and creativity (0) highlight the range of possible constructs and behaviours that
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
55
might be related to five factor model scores.
Global personality measures like the IASR-B5 and the NEO-PI-R have been related
to a number of other constructs (Johnson & Ostendorf, 1993). Kohlberg and Candee's (1984)
judgment of responsibility might be similar to the trait construct of Conscientiousness.
Kohlberg and Candee's (1 984) ego-controls included intelligence, attention, and delay of
gratification, traits which are similar to the Openness to Experience domain of the NEO-PI-R
and the Openness domain of the IASR-B5. McCrae (1987,1990,1993-94) and Johnson and
Ostendorf (1993) have argued that openness to experience includes aspects of intelligence,
creativity, and divergent thinking. There should be a strong relation between moral maturity
and conscientiousness and openness.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
56
Appendix B, Section A
Design of the Decision Reasoning Questionnaires
The questionnaires were designed to elicit sufficient reasoning about the resource
allocation decision, that could be accurately and reliably scored using procedures developed
for scoring real-life dilemmas, to result in a dilemma moral maturity score (WAS). The DRQ
questions were progressively more focused on moral issues associated with the allocation
decision. For example, question # 1 (DRQ-B)/pRQ-A], "Please explain, as fully as
possible, all the things you (think you should consider)/[considered] when deciding how to
allocate the bonus money" is very general, while question # 5, "(Are)/[Were] there any moral
issues involved in this decision? If so, please explain what they (are)/[were] and why they
are moral issues" is focused specifically on the moral issues.
In all but the Fred-Hypo group, participants completed the DRQ, either as a single
instrument @RQ-A) worded in the past tense, or in two parts, with the DRQ-B worded in the
future tense and the DRQ-P worded in the past tense. For example, question #1 was altered to
read, "Please explain, as fully as possible, all the things you considered when deciding how
Fred should allocate the bonus money."
All DRQ's included a set of group task performance rating scales. These
performance rating scales asked the participant to rate self and the three argument writers,
using a 1 to 8 Likert scale (scale anchors and original direction in brackets), on the amount of
time on task (very long to very short), the energv ex~endedon task (very little to very much),
the auantitv of contribution (very large to very small) and the quality of contribution (very
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
57
low to very high). All performance scale scores were re-coded with higher numbers
indicating higher performance. Only one of the performance scales related in a significant
way to any of the independent or dependent variables, and that relation was based on selfreported time spent completing a task, with no measured confirmation.
A final pair of questions assessed the effectiveness of the manipulation--to confirm
that participants believed that there were real consequences (keeping the money). For the
paid participation groups, real and play (N = 135), with the value of 1 assigned to "positive
they will NOT receive the money" and 8 assigned to "positive they WOULD receive the
money," participants indicated they believed the money they designated for the other
participants would be given to the other participants (M_ = 5.55, SD = 2.26). In the real
group, the mean was significantly higher (M = 5.93, SD = 2.43) than in the play groups (M =
5.16, SD = 2.0, i(135) = 2.0, Q < .05), with a full 75% of responses being above the mid-point
(5 to 8). The second question asked them to guess what the study was about. Analysis of
their open-ended responses show that 39% of the participants believed the study had
something to do with the connection between moral reasoning and moral behaviour or
fairness, while the remaining 61% of participants believed the study had something to do
with the manifest content (group task performance and personality), personality across
situations, or personality and selfishness/authority. There were only small differences
between the real and play groups, with 41% of participants in the real groups and 35% of
participants in the play groups correctly identifying the latent content of the study.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
58
Appendix BySection B
Decision Reasoning Questionnaire-A
Instructions
Please read and answer the questions in the order given. We are particularly interested in the
reasoning behind your answers, so please outline your reasoning and elaborate as fullv as
possible. If you need additional space to answer questions, write on the back of the page.
Please explain, as fully as possible, all the things you considered when deciding how to
allocate the bonus money.
What were the main issues involved in this decision? Please outline the issues in detail.
It was impossible in this situation to give everyone an equal share of the bonus
money, a constraint that is typical of many real-life situations. However, you
did allocate the money, and we would like to understand your reasoning.
Please give all the reasons you can think of, in order of importance, for giving yourself
more money than you gave the workers.
Please give all the reasons you can think of, in order of importance, for giving the
workers more money than you gave yourself.
Were there any moral issues involved in this decision? If so, please explain what they
were and why they are moral issues.
Did you consider any moral issues when you made your decision? If so, how did they
affect your decision? Please explain.
Regardless of what you did, what is the most moral way of allocating the money?
Please explain why it is the most moral way by referring to specific principles.
For questions 8 and 9, remember, it was not possible to divide the money equally.
Earlier you gave reasons for giving the workers more money than you gave yourself.
Now please give the best reasons you can think of why it would be fairer to give the
workers more money, on average, than you gave yourself.
Please give the best reasons you can think of why it would be fairer to give the workers
less money, on average, than you gave yourself.
-
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
59
10. Thinking back over the decision you made about how to distribute the bonus pay, what
is the most responsible thing to do? Please explain fully.
11. Given the constraints of the situation, did you allocate the bonus money fairly? Why or
why not?
12. In what sense could the way you allocated the money be considered fair? Please explain
fully.
13. In what sense could the way you allocated the money be considered unfair? Please
explain fully.
Appendix B, Section C
Performance Scales
Instructions
Please read and answer the questions in the order given.
14.
Please rate the performance of each worker.
14.1 Time spent on task.
WorkerA
Worker B
Worker C
Very
long
time
1
Very
short
time
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
(same scale as above)
14.2 Energy expended on task
WorkerA
Worker B
Worker C
Very
little
energy
1
2
very
much
energy
3
4
5
6
7
8
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
14.3 Quantity of contribution.
Worker A
Very
large
amount
1
2
Very
small
amount
3
4
5
6
.7
6
Very
high
quality
7
8
6
Very
short
time
7
8
8
Worker B
Worker C
14.4 Quality of contribution.
Worker A
Very
low
quality
1
2
3
4
5
Worker B
Worker C
15. Please rate your contribution to the group project.
15.1 Time spent on task.
Self
very
long
time
1
2
3
4
5
15.2 Energy expended on task
(scales and anchors as above)
15.3 Quantity of contribution.
15.4 Quality of contribution
Please turn over and answer the questions.
60
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
61
Some Psychological research has a bad name for misleading participants about the purpose of
the study. While taking part in this study, what did you think it was about?
How certain were you that the workers would, in fact, receive the money you gave them (in
the brown envelopes)?
Positive they
would receive
the money.
Positive they
would not receive
the money.
Appendix B, Section D
DRQ-B Questions only.
1.
Please explain, as fully as possible, all the things you considered when deciding how to
allocate the bonus money.
2.
What were the main issues involved in this decision? Please outline the issues in detail.
It was impossible in this situation to give everyone an equal share of the bonus
money, a constraint that is typical of many real-life situations. However, you
did allocate the money, and we would like to understand your reasoning.
3.
Please give all the reasons you can think of, in order of importance, for giving yourself
more money than you gave the workers.
4.
Please give all the reasons you can think of, in order of importance, for giving the
workers more money than you gave yourself.
5.
Were there any moral issues involved in this decision? If so, please explain what they
were and why they are moral issues.
6. Did you consider any moral issues when you made your decision? If so, how did they
affect your decision? Please explain.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
7.
62
Regardless of what you did, what is the most moral way of allocating the money?
Please explain why it is the most moral way by referring to specific principles.
For questions 8 and 9, remember, it was not possible to divide the money equally.
8.
Earlier you gave reasons for giving the workers more money than you gave yourself.
Now please give the best reasons you can think of why it would be fairer to give the
workers more money, on average, than you gave yourself.
9.
Please give the best reasons you can think of why it would be fairer to give the workers
less money, on average, than you gave yourself.
-
10. Thinking back over the decision you made about how to distribute the bonus pay, what
is the most responsible thing to do? Please explain fully.
Appendix B, Section E
DRQ-P Questions only.
1. . Given the constraints of the situation, did you allocate the bonus money fairly? Why or
why not?
2.
In what sense could the way you allocated the money be considered fair? Please explain
fully.
3.
In what sense could the way you allocated the money be considered unfair? Please
explain fully.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
63
Appendix C
Third-person Hypothetical "Fred" Dilemma Instructions and Questions
INSTRUCTIONS
Please read the following dilemma and complete the tasks in order. Answer all
questions as fully as possible. Whenever possible, elaborate on your answers
(use the back of the page, if necessary), but feel free to say "see above" if you
have already answered a question.
At a medium sized university, an undergraduate student named Fred volunteered to be in
a Psychology study about group structure and the effect of personality on group performance.
He was told that he and three other volunteers had been randomly assigned to a four person
nominal group. A nominal group was described as being a group in name only; people work
on components of a group project, but work separately.
Fred's group's task was to write arguments opposing the legalization of marijuana, with
one member of the group being randomly assigned to write economic, one to write medical
arguments, and one to write social arguments. The fourth group member was assigned the
role of "coordinator," whose task was to pick the three best arguments, one from each content
area (economic, medical, social).
Fred was randomly assigned to the coordinator role. Fred completed a personality
questionnaire while the other group members wrote their arguments. After 20 minutes, the
researcher gave Fred the economic, medical, and social arguments. Each member of the
group had generated five arguments, which Fred found approximately equal in quality. He
picked the best argument from each set. Following this, Fred was given another task, which
was described as follows:
"You have an additional responsibility as coordinator that the other ~ o u p
members know nothinp about. Your group has been given $20 bonus money. You
will have to determine how much money each member of the group, including
yourself, deserves for his or her contribution to the final project. You will receive an
envelope containing $20 dollars in ten $2.00 bills and three white envelopes with
identifying codes on them. (All participants will receive $6.00 for participating in
the study; the $20.00 is bonus money gver and above the $6.00 participation
money.) Your task will be to allocate the money to yourself and to the other
members of the group as you see fit by putting whatever amount you choose to give
each person in the labelled envelopes. The money CANNOT be divided equallyyou will have to decide the best way to distribute the money. Your decisions
will be com~letelvprivate and com~letelvconfidential: NO ONE (not even the
researcher, who will code all the data you supply by your subject number) will
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
64
ever know how much money you gave to each of the other three group
members or how much you kept for yourself (which is why you were instructed
NOT to identify yourself by name). In fact, the other members of the group will
never be told that you allocated the bonus money. They will simply be told they
have been awarded some extra money and given an envelope with their code on it."
la) How much money should Fred keep for himself? (circle one)
$0
$2
$4
$6
$8
$10 $12 $14
How much money should Fred give to each other group member?
lb) $0
Economic Argument Writer
$2
$4
$6
$8
$10
Ic) $0
Medical Argument Writer
$2
$4
$6
$8
$10
Id) $0
Social Argument Writer
$2
$4
$6
$8
$10
The total money distributed should add to $20.
Please explain, as fully as possible, all the things you considered when deciding how
Fred should allocate the bonus money.
What were the main issues involved in this decision? Please outline the issues in detail.
It was impossible in this situation to give everyone an equal share of the bonus
money, a constraint that is typical of many real-life situations. However, you
did indicate how you believed Fred should allocate the money, and we would
like to understand your reasoning.
Please give all the reasons you can think of, in order of importance, for having Fred give
himself more money, on average, than he gave the writers.
Please give all the reasons you can think of, in order of importance, for having Fred give
the writers more money, on average, than he gave himself.
Were there any moral issues involved in this decision? If so, please explain what they
were and why they are moral issues.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
65
7.
Did you consider any moral issues when indicating what you thought Fred should do? If
so, how did they affect the alternatives considered? Please explain.
8.
Regardless of what you believe Fred should have done, what is the most moral way of
allocating the money? Please explain why it is the most moral way by referring to
specific principles.
For questions 9 and 10, remember, it was not possible to divide the money equally.
Earlier you gave reasons for why Fred should give the writers more money than he gave
himself. Now please give the best reasons you can think of why it would have been
fairer for Fred to give the writers more money, on average, than he gave himself.
Earlier you gave reasons for why Fred should give himself more money than he gave the
writers. Please give the best reasons you can think of why it would be fairer for Fred to
give himself more money, on average, than he gave the writers.
Thinking back over Fred's decision about how to distribute the bonus pay, what is the
most responsible thing for Fred to do? Please explain fully.
Given the constraints of the situation, did Fred allocate the bonus money fairly? Why or
why not?
In what sense could the way Fred allocated the money be considered fair? Please
explain fully.
In what sense could the way Fred allocated the money be considered unfair? Please
explain fully.
Is the fact that the other group members will never know who allocated the bonus money
important? Please explain fully.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
66
Appendix D, Section A
Complete Participant Feedback--Sample: Fred Condition
Measures of Moral Reasoning & Personality Study
Thank you for participating in my research. You have provided data that will contribute
to the success of my dissertation research. The feedback information below is specific to the
"condition" you were assigned--the hypothetical, content comparison condition.
In the past, both moral judgment research and personality trait research failed to live up
to the promise of measuring people on meaningful dimensions. Part of the problem seems to
have been in the way researchers measured personality and morality. Early attempts at
measuring personality traits seldom defined the traits in ways that were acceptable or
testable. The relation of measured traits to other equally questionable measures of
intelligence, motivation, or morality were tenuous at best. In addition, Psychology
researchers from the 1920's to the 1970's tended to avoid any area of research where the
variable of interest could not be measured with a ruler (the behaviourist approach). The lack
of common definitions, observable behaviours, and strong correlations between constructs
meant that the relation between personality, morality, and behaviour has been ignored for
several decades. The research you participated in attempts to overcome some of the
problems of the earlier research and show that there are meaningful relations between
personality and moral reasoning. You completed three measures, two of which are
standardized measures, and one that was designed specifically for this research.
The Moral Judgment Interview (MJI, Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) included the Heinz
dilemma. The MJI is a standardized and widely used measure that assesses the
developmental aspects of moral reasoning. Researchers working with this instrument use a
1500 page scoring protocol to classify the moral reasoning used by a participant on
hypothetical moral dilemmas into one of five moral stages. Although there have been some
concerns about the applicability of this measure to various populations, it is the most reliable
and empirically established instrument of its kind.
The personality questionnaire, the Interpersonal Adjectives Scale Revised--Big 5 (IASRB5, Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990) measures normal personality and focuses on five domains of
personality. In other conditions of the research, participants also completed the Revised
NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R, Costa & McCrae, 1992). This measure of
personality focuses on the same five domains of personality as the IASR-BS. The NEO-PI-R
describes the five domains of personality with the labels neuroticism (N), extraversion (E),
openness (0), agreeableness (A), and conscientiousness (C). Each of the five domains has
six facets that define the domain. One example fiom the Openness domain, is Values (06),
or openness to values, which measures the willingness to question social, political, and
religious values. People with lower scores tend to accept authority and honour tradition.
People with high scores seem willing to question both societal and personal values.
The hypothetical "Fred" dilemma is different in content to the MJI dilemmas and allows
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
67
me to assess moral reasoning about something that might happen in everyday circumstances.
One concern that researchers have about previous research that looked at moral reasoning
across situations is whether or not the level of reasoning that non-MJI dilemmas evoke is the
same as would be evoked by MJI dilemmas. If the level of reasoning is different for different
situations, then using the MJI scores to predict behaviour might not have great utility. One
prediction I am making is that the level of moral reasoning will be different across the
different dilemma types.
This overall study is a complex design, with many conditions. The amount of money
you believed Fred should keep for himself is one DV, with the MJI, Fred dilemma scores,
and the IASR-B5 being predictors. The study is also correlational, with several general
predictions and many specific predictions. One general prediction is that scores Fred
dilemma will be positively correlated with scores on the MJI. I am also interested in the
relation between specific facets of the IASR-B5 and the scores of the M.TI.
Thank you for participating in this research. You have participated in a complex study
that asked you to perform certain tasks, some of which were very difficult. I recognize, and
wish to remind you, that everyone who participates in this research contributes equally to the
research, regardless of the task completed. As I wish to guarantee anonymity for all
participants, I ask that you DO NOT discuss the role to which you were randomly assigned
with anyone who participated in the present study, or who might participate in the future.
I hope this information has helped you understand the goals and methodology of this
research. Again, I assure you that all of your responses will be kept anonymous and
confidential. You are welcome to contact me if you are interested in the final results of the
study (please wait several months); please contact Russell Day (29 1-3003).
Appendix D, Section B
Participant Feedback--Questionnaire Study
Personality & Measures of Moral Reasoning Study
In the past, both moral judgment research and personality trait research failed to live up
to the promise of measuring people on meaningful dimensions. Part of the problem seems to
have been in the way researchers measured personality and morality. Early attempts at
measuring personality traits seldom defined the traits in ways that were acceptable or
testable. The relation of measured traits to other equally questionable measures of
intelligence, motivation, or morality were tenuous at best. In addition, Psychology
researchers fiom the 1920's to the 1970's tended to avoid any area of research where the
variable of interest could not be measured with a ruler (the behaviourist approach). The lack
of common definitions, the lack of directly observable behaviours, and the poor correlations
between constructs meant that the relation between personality and morality has been ignored
for several decades.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
68
The research you have just participated in attempts to overcome some of the problems of
the earlier research and show that there are meaningful relations between personality traits
and verbal expressions of moral capacity. The newer measures you have just completed are
both valid and reliable. The measure of personality is the Revised NEO Personality
Inventory (NEO-PI-R, Costa & McCrae, 1992). This measure of normal personality focuses
on five domains of personality. The five domains of the NEO-PI-R are captured by the labels
neuroticism (N), extraversion (E), openness (0), agreeableness (A), and conscientiousness
(C). Each of the five domains has six facets that define the domain. One example fiom the
Openness domain, is Values (06), or openness to values, which measures the willingness to
question social, political, and religious values. People with lower scores tend to accept
authority and honour tradition. People with high scores seem willing to question both
societal and personal values.
The Moral Judgment Interview (MJI, Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) is a standardized and
widely used measure that assesses the developmental aspects of moral reasoning.
Researchers working with this instrument use a 1500 page scoring protocol to classify the
moral reasoning used by a participant on hypothetical moral dilemmas into one of five moral
stages. Although there have been some concerns about the applicability of this measure to
various populations, it is the most reliable and empirically established instrument of its kind.
This study is correlational. There are several general predictions and many specific
predictions. One prediction is that the Conscientiousness domain of the NEO-PI-R will be
positively correlated with higher Stage Scores on the MJI. I am also interested in the relation
between specific facets of the NEO-PI-R and the Stage Scores of the MJI. For example, the
Openness to Values facet of the NEO-PI-R should be related to moral stages concerned with
looking at moral dilemmas fiom more than one perspective. There should also be some
negative correlations, with Neuroticism being negatively correlated with Moral Maturity.
Thank You for participating in this study. I hope this information has helped you
understand the goals and methodology of this research. Again, I assure you that all of your
responses are anonymous and confidential. You are welcome to contact me if you are
interested in the final results of the study: please contact Russell Day (291-3003).
(Please do not discuss this research with your fiends until they have participated.)
Appendix D, Section C
Participant Feedback--Allocation Study
Personality and Group Task Performance Study
In the past, both decision reasoning research and personality trait research failed to live
up to the promise of measuring people on meaningful dimensions. Part of the problem seems
to have been in the way researchers measured personality. Early attempts at measuring
personality traits seldom defined the traits in ways that were acceptable or testable. The
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
69
relation of measured traits to other equally questionable measures of intelligence or
motivation were tenuous at best. In addition, Psychology researchers fiom the 1920's to the
1970's tended to avoid any area of research where the variable of interest could not be
measured with a ruler (the behaviourist approach). The lack of common definitions,
observable behaviours, and strong correlations between constructs meant that the relation
between personality and behaviour has been ignored for several decades.
The research you have just participated in attempts to overcome some of the problems of
the earlier research and show that there are meaningful relations between personality and
decision behaviour. The newer measures you have completed (or will complete) are both
valid and reliable. One measure of personality is the Revised NEO Personality Inventory
(NEO-PI-R, Costa & McCrae, 1992). This measure of normal personality focuses on five
domains of personality. The five domains of the NEO-PI-R are captured by the labels
neuroticism (N), extraversion (E), openness (0), agreeableness (A), and conscientiousness
(C). Each of the five domains has six facets that define the domain. The other personality
questionnaire, the Interpersonal Adjectives Scale Revised--Big 5 (IASR-B5, Trapnell &
Wiggins, 1990) is also valid and reliable. Like the NEO-PI-R, the IASR-B5 measures
normal personality and focuses on five domains of personality. The task and the
questionnaire, the Decision Reasoning Questionnaire (DRQ) were constructed and carefully
pilot-tested for this research.
This study is a mixed design. The NEO-PI-R and IASR-B5 should predict the types of
decisions being made. The study is also correlational, with several general predictions and
many specific predictions. One general prediction is that scores on the Conscientiousness
scale of the NEO-PI-R will be positively correlated with scores on the DRQ.
Thank You for participating in this study. I hope this information has helped you
understand the goals and methodology of this research. Again, I assure you that all of your
responses will be kept anonymous and confidential. You are welcome to contact me if you
are interested in the final results of the study (please wait several months! !); please contact
Russell Day (291-3003).
(Please do not discuss this research with your fiends until they have participated.)
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
70
Appendix E
Procedural Details
Descri~tionof bogus grouDs. The eight group conditions were described as varying in
size (some larger, some smaller) and structure (some nominal, some intact). Groups A and B
were described as nominal four person groups. Some participants were assigned to Group A
and others to Group B, with all participants informed that some members of each group
might be in different research rooms.
Description of nominal 2rouDs. In addition to providing written information, the
researcher defined a nominal group as a group in name only, with the example of the "new
electronic cottage industries" being used to illustrate the concept. A nomind group was
described as being one where the members never met, but all members worked on
components of the same project and communicated electronically. In contrast, the traditional
intact group was described as one that met in one location, face-to-face, and worked on
projects together. The intact group versus nominal group research paradigm was described
and used as justification for the "test of the hypothesis that isolated contributions to a group
effort can be as large and valuable as the contributions made by participants in the face-toface group condition--and it might depend, to some degree, on individual differences in
personality."
Instructions regarding hand-written armunents. Each set of freshly Mitten arguments
was allegedly just completed by the other group members and was delivered with the
instructions, "Please do not write on these, we need to make photocopies for scoring
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
71
purposes--Thanks." The arguments were generated by participants in pilot study one, the
content rated as being typical of undergraduate students, and hand-copied by several research
assistants. Each set of hand-written arguments was examined after being used, discarded if
soiled or marked in any way, and replaced with new handwritten copies (see examples
below).
Bogus distribution of envelopes. The researcher collected and hid the real allocation
envelopes, with one or two bogus argument writer pay envelopes then being prominently
displayed in Writer A, Writer B, or Writer C slots of racks labelled Group A, Group B, to
Group H in the common reception area. During the initial briefing session, the labelled rack
was clearly visible, but no explanation was offered as to its purpose.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
72
Appendix F, Section A
Allocation Study Instruction Summary
Personality and Group Task Performance
Instruction Summary--Please Read Carefully
You have volunteered for a study of personality, group structure, and task performance
for which you will be paid $6.00. Of the eight possible group structures, you have been
randomly assigned, along with three other volunteers, to a "4 person nominal group." A
nominal group is a group in name only as opposed to an "intact" group. In a nominal group
situation, group members work on components of some larger project, but members of the
group work separately (some past research has found that people work more effectively on
separate parts of a group task when each member works in isolation).
Your group task is to draft a statement opposing the legalization of marijuana. Your role
will be assigned randomly, with three members of your group being Writers and one of you
being the Coordinator. Each of the three Writers will spend 15 minutes drafting his or her
part of a statement opposing the legalization of marijuana--Writer A on the economic
implications of legalizing the drug; Writer B on the medical implications of legalizing the
drug; Writer C on the social implications of legalizing the drug. After the three Writers draft
their statements, they will give them to the Researcher to give to the Coordinator, and the
Coordinator will decide which three arguments are the best arguments to include in the final
statement.
While the three Writers in the group are drafting their statements, the Coordinator will
complete a personality test (the Writers will complete the personality test while the
Coordinator picks the best arguments). Your random assignment to your role is below.
You have been randomly assigned the role of Coordinator.
Please complete the demographic and personality questionnaires now. DO NOT record any
identifying information on the forms. Once you have completed the personality
questionnaire, the researcher will supply you with the "Writer's" arguments.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
73
Appendix F, Section B
Ranking Task Instructions
#:
Coordinator
Personality and Group Task Performance
Please read the following task information carefully and answer all ensuing questions. You
will have only 15 minutes to complete this task.
The researcher has given you the arguments produced by the other members of your
group. Please read the arguments supplied by the other group members carellly. Each of
their arguments is identified by a code number, and your task is to evaluate and pick the best
3 arguments, one from each set of arguments.
Please read each of the statements from a set, pick the argument you consider the best
and write the code number for it on the line beside Economic # 1 below (for example, Best
Economic Argument: Econ.--4A Econ. = Economic; 4 = the fourth argument; A = Writer
A). Do the same for the Medical and Social arguments.
Code Number
Best Economic Argument :
Best Medical Argument :
Best Social Argument :
Do you believe that Marijuana should be legalized in Canada? (circle one)
Definitely
should BE
legalized.
Definitely
should NOT BE
legalized.
After you have picked the 3 best arguments and answered the question, please put the
arguments and this sheet into the brown envelope, seal it, and complete the next task.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
74
Appendix G, Section A
Allocation Task Instructions--ReasoningAfter/Real Money
Read the following information very carefully.
You have an additional responsibility as coordinator. Your group has been given $20
bonus money and your job is to determine how much money to give each member of the
group, including yourself, for his or her contribution to the final project. You will receive an
envelope containing $20 dollars in ten $2.00 bills and three white envelopes with identifying
codes on them. (All participants will receive $6.00 for participating in the study; the $20.00
is bonus money over and above the $6.00 participation money.) Your task will be to allocate
the money to yourself and to the other members of the group as you see fit by putting
whatever amount you choose to give each person in the labelled envelopes. The money
CANNOT be divided equally-you will have to decide the best way to distribute the
money. 1
NO ONE
:
(not even the researcher, who will code all the data you supply by your subject number)
will ever know how much money you gave to each of the other three group members or
how much you kept for yourself(which is why you were instructed NOT to identifj. yourself
by name). In fact, the other members of the group will never be told that you allocated the
bonus money. They will simply be told they may have been awarded some extra money and
given an envelope with their code on it.
Would you allocate the money now by putting it in the appropriate envelopes? Please
seal the white envelopes and slide the envelopes through the tube in the wall so the researcher
can distribute them. You may base your decision about how to allocate the money on
whatever considerations you want.
Thank You
Now that you have allocated the money, we would like to understand as well as we can how
you thought about this task and what sorts of things you think are important in making such
decisions. Therefore, would you please complete the Decision Reasoning Questionnaire
now?
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
75
Appendix G, Section B
Allocation Task Instructions--Reasoning Beforeplay Money
Read the following information very carefully.
You have an additional responsibility as coordinator. Your group has been given $20
bonus money and your job is to determine how much money to give each member of the
group, including yourself, for his or her contribution to the final project. You will receive an
envelope containing $20 dollars in ten $2.00 bills (in play money) and four white envelopes
with identifying codes on them. (All participants will receive $6.00 for participating in the
study; the $20.00 is bonus play money over and above the $6.00 participation money.) Your
task will be to allocate the play money to yourself and to the other members of the group as
you see fit by putting whatever amount you choose to give each person in the labelled
envelopes. The play money CANNOT be divided equally-you will have to decide the
best way to distribute the play money. Your decisions will be completelv ~rivateand
com~letelvconfidential: NO ONE (not even the researcher, who will code all the data you
supply by your subject number) will ever know how much play money you gave to each of
the other three group members, or how much you keptfor yourseIf(which is why you were
instructed NOT to identify yourself by name). In fact, the other members of the group will
never be told that you allocated the bonus money. They will simply be told they may have
been awarded some extra money and given an envelope with their code on it.
Before you allocate the money, we would like to understand as well as we can how you
are thinking about this task and what sorts of things you think are important in making such
decisions. Therefore, would you please complete the Decision Reasoning Questionnaire
now?
Thank You
Please complete the allocation task, following the instructions below.
Would you allocate the play money now by putting it in the appropriate envelopes? Please
seal the white envelopes and slide the envelopes through the tube in the wall so the researcher
can distribute them. You may base your decision about how to allocate the money on
whatever considerations you want.
Once you have completed allocating the money, please complete the pink questionnaire
@RQ-PIThank You
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
76
Appendix H
Hypothetical "Imagine Self' Instructions
Personality and Group Task Performance
Instructions
Please imagine yourself in the following situation. You have volunteered for a study on
personality and task performance for which you will be paid $6.00. You and three other
volunteers will form a "group." The researcher explains that the four of you are part of a
nominal group (a group in name only--past research has found that people work more
effectively on separate parts of a group task when each member works in isolation). The four
of you are members of a group whose task is to draft a statement opposing the legalization of
marijuana. You will pick your assignment randomly, with three of you being workers and
one of you being the Coordinator. The researcher explains that each of the three workers will
spend 20 minutes drafting his or her part of a statement opposing the legalization of
marijuana--wok A on the economic implications of legalizing the drug; worker B on the
medical implications of legalizing the drug; worker C on the social implications of legalizing
the drug. After the three workers draft their statements, they will give them to the
Coordinator, and the Coordinator will decide which order the individual arguments should be
in the final statement--with the best arguments first.
While the three workers in the group are drafting their statements, the Coordinator will
complete a personality test (the workers will complete the personality test while the
Coordinator ranks the arguments).
You pick the role of Coordinator. The three other volunteers pick the role of workers. Please
imagine that the three other group members are drafting their statements now, while you are
completing the personality questionnaire.
Please complete the personality questionnaire now. DO NOT record any identifying
information on the questionnaire response form. Once you have completed the personality
questionnaire, the researcher will supply you with photocopies of the "worker's" arguments.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
77
Read the following information very carefully.
Please imagine that you have an additional responsibility as coordinator. Your group
has been given $20 bonus money and your job is to determine how much money to give each
member of the group, including yourself, for his or her contribution to the final project. You
are told that you will receive an envelope containing $20 dollars in ten $2.00 bills and four
small brown envelopes with identifying codes on them. (You are told that you will receive
$6.00 for participating in the study; the $20.00 is bonus money over and above the $6.00
participation money.) Your task will be to allocate the money to yourself and to the other
members of the group as you see fit by putting whatever amount you choose to give each
person in the labelled envelopes. The play money CANNOT be divided equally--you will
have to decide the best way to distribute the money. Your decisions will be com~letely
private and completelv confidential: no one will ever know how much play money you
gave to each of the other three group members or how much you keptfor yourself (which
is why you were instructed NOT to identify yourself by name). In fact, the other members of
the group will never be told that you allocated the bonus money. They will simply be told
they may have been awarded some extra money and given an envelope with their code on it.
Please imagine that the attached envelope contains real money. Would you indicate how
you think you would allocate the money now by putting the play money in the appropriate
small envelopes? Please place the small envelopes into the white envelope and seal the white
envelope You may base your decision about how to allocate the money on whatever
considerations you want.
Thank You
Now that you have allocated the money, we would like to understand as well as we can how
you thought about this task and what sorts of things you think are important in making such
decisions. Therefore, would you please complete the Decision Reasoning Questionnaire
now?
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
78
Footnotes
1
The term sex is used throughout this research to reflect the question asked on the
demographic questionnaire; Circle One: Male or Female. No attempt was made to
assess aspects of gender like masculinity or femininity.
2
These identical twins continued to communicate with each other in spite of repeated
requests to complete the tasks alone. When separated, they responded to some
components in "mirror-image" fashion, e.g., one kept $20, the other kept $0.
3
All quotes in the procedure section are fiom the scripts used by the researchers.
4
The exact p value is reported for planned comparisons where appropriate.
5
To illustrate the group differences, participants' money kept scores were dichotomized
as being more self-benefitting when values were greater than $5.00, the value marking a
conceptually equal allocation in the distributive justice task, and less self-benefitting
when less than $5.00. Across all conditions, 93 (46.3%) of participants had less selfbenefitting scores, while 108 (53.7%) of participants had more self-benefitting scores.
The distribution of less and more self-benefitting scores was different by consequence
condition with more real condition participants having more self-benefitting scores (5 1
of 68; 75%) than hypo condition participants (33 of 66; 50%) or play condition
participants (24 of 67; 35.8%).
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
79
Table 1
Description of Groups. DRO Format. Context. and Tasks
GroupName
N
(MIW)
DRQFormat
Context and Tasks
HYPOFred
15/20
DRQFred
Individual, take-home package, participants responded to
a hypothetical dilemma similar to Kohlberg's dilemmas,
but based on "Fred" distributing "$20.00 bonus money."
HYPOImagine
Self
15116
DRQ-A
Individual package, group context, participants
(A=after) responded to a hypothetical dilemma similar to the
PLAY-After dilemma, differing in that the instructions
asked them to "Imagine yourself in the situation."
PLAYAfter
16117
DRQ-A
Group context, groups of 4 participants received
common initial instructions before being isolated in
individual research cubicles. Participants were asked to
reason about allocating "$20.00 &y bonus money" after
dividing & money.
PLAYBefore
16118
DRQ-B
(B=before)
DRQ-P
(?=post)
Group context, like PLAY-After above, except
participants were asked to reason before and after (postdecision) deciding how to divide the "$20.00 &bonus
money."
REALAfter
18117
DRQ-A
Group context, like PLAY-After above, except the
"$20.00 bonus money" was
Participants could keep
up to $20.00 real money.
REALBefore
15118
DRQ-B
DRQ-P
Group context, like PLAY-Before above, except the
Participants could keep
"$20.00 bonus money" was
up to $20.00 real money.
a.
a.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
Table 2
Mean Moral Maturity across Sex and Kohlberg Dilemmas
Men
N = 95
Women
N = 106
-
--
Both
N = 201
-
Kohlberg's
Dilemmas
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
I11 (Heinz)
309.27
48.90
312.35
54.29
310.73
51.41
111' (Officer
Brown)
317.80
32.70
325.79
37.72
321.58
35.30
I (Joe)
320.30
28.80
318.28
34.58
319.35
31.59
Total MMS
316.38
27.88
317.95
34.94
317.12
31.34
80
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
81
Table 3
Mean IASR-B5 Domain Scores bv Sex compared to Trapnell and Wiggins (1992)
Domain
Scale
Women
N = 106
(NormScores)
Men
N = 95
(NormScores)
Both
N = 201
(NormScores)
SD
-
DOM
4.95
(5.O3)
LOV
6.40
(6.45)
CONSC
5.73
(5.74)
OPEN
5.61
(5.53)
Note:
* g < .0 1.
Sex
Diff.
1-ratio
Trapnell and Wiggins (1992) reported values; N = 94 1. aComparisonsfor
which Trapnell and Wiggins (1992) report a significant sex difference.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
82
Table 4
Mean NEO-PI-R Domain Scores compared to Costa and McCrae (1992) Table B-3 for
College-Age Individuals
Domain
Scale
Men
N=80
(NormScores)
Women
N = 86
(NormScores)
SD
-
Extraversion
117.5
(123.9)
Agreeableness
117.3
(1 17.2)
Conscientiousness
114.8
(115.1)
Openness
126.6
(1 18.6)
Neuroticism
101.9
(99.8)
M
-
SD
-
Both
N = 166
(NormScores)
M
-
Sex
Diff.
1-ratio
Note: * p < .05. N = 241 women and 148 men fiom Costa and McCrae (1992) college-age
sample. aComparisonsfor which Costa and McCrae (1992) report a significant sex
difference.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
83
Table 5
Pearson's Correlations between NEO-PI-R Domain scores and IASR-B5 Domain Scores (N =
166)
NEO-PI-R Domains
IASR-B5
Domains
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Openness
Conscientiousness
Neuroticism
Dom. (Extraversion)
._
60
-.2 1
-36
.24
-.33
Lov. (Agreeableness)
.25
._
70
.16
-04
-.I2
Openness to
Experience
.24
.05
._
75
.16
-.lo
Conscientiousness
-.OO
.07
-.05
._
79
-.09
Neuroticism
Note: Absolute coefficients greater than .15 are significant at Q < .05. The IASR-B5 labels
Dom. and Lov. refer to the 16 item scales assessing dominance and nurturance. The
additional IASR-B5 labels (Extraversion/Agreeableness)are for convenience only.
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
Table 6
Mean KMM and DJMM Scores across Conditions
KMM Score
DJMM Score
Condition
HYPO
316.11
24.79
282.27
45.63
6.03**
Play
318.11
34.36
302.34
5 1.08
2.64*
Red
317.13
34.21
286.06
40.51
5.87**
Full Sample
3 17.12
3 1.34
290.24
46.5 1
8.19**
Note: * Q < .01,
** E < .001.
84
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
Table 7
Mean Money Kept Scores and DJMM Scores bv Consequence
Money Kept
DJMM
Reality
of
Consequence
N
M
SD
M
SD
Play
67
$4.18,
$2.22
302.34,,c
5 1.08
Real
68
$6.68,
$3.98
286.06,
40.51
-
--
--
-
Note: Means that share a subscript are significantly different at the p < .05 level.
85
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
Table 8
Mean KMM and DJMM Scores bv Sex and Condition
KMM Scores
DJMM Scores
Difference
Condition
by Sex
HYPO
Men
30
313.83
27.96
259.16
33.44
54.67
Women
36
318.00
22.05
301.52
45.83
16.48
Men
32
324.41
39.31
302.84
60.49
21.57
Women
35
312.34
28.50
301.89
41.58
10.45
Men
33
315.42
36.28
287.61
48.33
27.81
Women
35
318.74
32.58
284.60
32.12
34.14
PLAY
REAL
86
Individual Differences and Justice-Decisions
Step
Function
1
Interpretation of
the situation
87
Coanition
Social perspectivetaking of
moral stage
Moral substage
Deontic choice
Follow-through
(moral judgment)
Follow-through
(non-moral skills)
Judgment of
responsibility
or obligation
(intelligence, attention,
Moral Action
Figure
1.
Kohlberg and Candee's (1 984) Model of the Relation between Moral Judgment
and Moral Action